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MAN AND SUPERMAN 

A COMEDY AND A PHILOSOPHY 

George Bernard Shaw

This public-domain (U.S.) text was produced 

by Eve Sobol, South Bend, Indiana, USA. 

The Project Gutenberg edition (designated 

“mands10”) was subsequently converted to 

L A TEX using GutenMark software and reedited 

by Ron Burkey. The text of the 

Appendix, “The Revolutionist’s Handbook,” 

which was omitted from the Project Gutenberg 

edition, has been restored from alternate 

online sources (www.bartleby.com). Report 

problems to info@sandroid.org. Revision 

B2 differs from B1 in that “—-” was everywhere 

replaced with “—”. 

Revision: B2 

Date: 02/02/2008

Contents 

EPISTLE DEDICATORY TO 

ARTHUR BINGHAM WALKLEY 1 

ACT I 45 

ACT II 107 

ACT III 139 

ACT IV 235 

THE REVOLUTIONIST’S HANDBOOK 

AND POCKET COMPANION 279 

PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 

I. ON GOOD BREEDING . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 

II. PROPERTY AND MARRIAGE . . . . . . . 283 

III. THE PERFECTIONIST EXPERIMENT 

AT ONEIDA CREEK . . . . . . . . . . . . 292 

IV. MAN’S OBJECTION TO HIS 

OWN IMPROVEMENT . . . . . . . . . . . 295 

V. THE POLITICAL NEED FOR 

THE SUPERMAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 

VI. PRUDERY EXPLAINED . . . . . . . . . . 300 

VII. PROGRESS AN ILLUSION . . . . . . . . 303 

VIII. THE CONCEIT OF CIVILIZATION . . . 311 

IX. THE VERDICT OF HISTORY . . . . . . . 321 

X. THE METHOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325 

MAXIMS FOR REVOLUTIONISTS . . . . . . 330 

i

EPISTLE 

DEDICATORY TO 

ARTHUR 

BINGHAM 

WALKLEY 

MY DEAR WALKLEY: 

You once asked me why I did not write a 

Don Juan play. The levity with which you assumed 

this frightful responsibility has probably 

by this time enabled you to forget it; but 

the day of reckoning has arrived: here is your 

play! I say your play, because qui facit per alium 

facit per se. Its profits, like its labor, belong 

to me: its morals, its manners, its philosophy, 

its influence on the young, are for 

you to justify. You were of mature age when 

you made the suggestion; and you knew your 

man. It is hardly fifteen years since, as twin 

pioneers of the New Journalism of that time, 

we two, cradled in the same new sheets, made 

an epoch in the criticism of the theatre and 

the opera house by making it a pretext for a 

1

2 MAN AND SUPERMAN 

propaganda of our own views of life. So you 

cannot plead ignorance of the character of the 

force you set in motion. You meant me to épater 

lé bourgeois; and if he protests, I hereby 

refer him to you as the accountable party. 

I warn you that if you attempt to repudiate 

your responsibility, I shall suspect you of 

finding the play too decorous for your taste. 

The fifteen years have made me older and 

graver. In you I can detect no such becoming 

change. Your levities and audacities are 

like the loves and comforts prayed for by Desdemona: 

they increase, even as your days do 

grow. No mere pioneering journal dares meddle 

with them now: the stately Times itself 

is alone sufficiently above suspicion to act as 

your chaperone; and even the Times must 

sometimes thank its stars that new plays are 

not produced every day, since after each such 

event its gravity is compromised, its platitude 

turned to epigram, its portentousness to wit, 

its propriety to elegance, and even its decorum 

into naughtiness by criticisms which the traditions 

of the paper do not allow you to sign at 

the end, but which you take care to sign with 

the most extravagant flourishes between the 

lines. I am not sure that this is not a portent of 

Revolution. In eighteenth century France the 

end was at hand when men bought the Encyclopedia 

and found Diderot there. When I buy 

the Times and find you there, my prophetic 

ear catches a rattle of twentieth century tumbrils. 

However, that is not my present anxiety. 

The question is, will you not be disappointed

EPISTLE DEDICATORY 3 

with a Don Juan play in which not one of 

that hero’s mille e tre adventures is brought 

upon the stage To propitiate you, let me explain 

myself. You will retort that I never do 

anything else: it is your favorite jibe at me 

that what I call drama is nothing but explanation. 

But you must not expect me to adopt 

your inexplicable, fantastic, petulant, fastidious 

ways: you must take me as I am, a reasonable, 

patient, consistent, apologetic, laborious 

person, with the temperament of a schoolmaster 

and the pursuits of a vestryman. No doubt 

that literary knack of mine which happens to 

amuse the British public distracts attention 

from my character; but the character is there 

none the less, solid as bricks. I have a conscience; 

and conscience is always anxiously 

explanatory. You, on the contrary, feel that a 

man who discusses his conscience is much like 

a woman who discusses her modesty. The only 

moral force you condescend to parade is the 

force of your wit: the only demand you make 

in public is the demand of your artistic temperament 

for symmetry, elegance, style, grace, 

refinement, and the cleanliness which comes 

next to godliness if not before it. But my conscience 

is the genuine pulpit article: it annoys 

me to see people comfortable when they ought 

to be uncomfortable; and I insist on making 

them think in order to bring them to conviction 

of sin. If you don’t like my preaching you 

must lump it. I really cannot help it. 

In the preface to my Plays for Puritans I 

explained the predicament of our contemporary 

English drama, forced to deal almost ex-


clusively with cases of sexual attraction, and 

yet forbidden to exhibit the incidents of that 

attraction or even to discuss its nature. Your 

suggestion that I should write a Don Juan 

play was virtually a challenge to me to treat 

this subject myself dramatically. The challenge 

was difficult enough to be worth accepting, 

because, when you come to think of it, 

though we have plenty of dramas with heroes 

and heroines who are in love and must accordingly 

marry or perish at the end of the play, 

or about people whose relations with one another 

have been complicated by the marriage 

laws, not to mention the looser sort of plays 

which trade on the tradition that illicit love 

affairs are at once vicious and delightful, we 

have no modern English plays in which the 

natural attraction of the sexes for one another 

is made the mainspring of the action. That 

is why we insist on beauty in our performers, 

differing herein from the countries our friend 

William Archer holds up as examples of seriousness 

to our childish theatres. There the 

Juliets and Isoldes, the Romeos and Tristans, 

might be our mothers and fathers. Not so the 

English actress. The heroine she impersonates 

is not allowed to discuss the elemental 

relations of men and women: all her romantic 

twaddle about novelet-made love, all her 

purely legal dilemmas as to whether she was 

married or “betrayed,” quite miss our hearts 

and worry our minds. To console ourselves 

we must just look at her. We do so; and her 

beauty feeds our starving emotions. Sometimes 

we grumble ungallantly at the lady be-


cause she does not act as well as she looks. 

But in a drama which, with all its preoccupation 

with sex, is really void of sexual interest, 

good looks are more desired than histrionic 

skill. 

Let me press this point on you, since you 

are too clever to raise the fool’s cry of paradox 

whenever I take hold of a stick by the right 

instead of the wrong end. Why are our occasional 

attempts to deal with the sex problem 

on the stage so repulsive and dreary that even 

those who are most determined that sex questions 

shall be held open and their discussion 

kept free, cannot pretend to relish these joyless 

attempts at social sanitation Is it not 

because at bottom they are utterly sexless 

What is the usual formula for such plays 

A woman has, on some past occasion, been 

brought into conflict with the law which regulates 

the relations of the sexes. A man, by 

falling in love with her, or marrying her, is 

brought into conflict with the social convention 

which discountenances the woman. Now 

the conflicts of individuals with law and convention 

can be dramatized like all other human 

conflicts; but they are purely judicial; 

and the fact that we are much more curious 

about the suppressed relations between the 

man and the woman than about the relations 

between both and our courts of law and private 

juries of matrons, produces that sensation 

of evasion, of dissatisfaction, of fundamental 

irrelevance, of shallowness, of useless 

disagreeableness, of total failure to edify and 

partial failure to interest, which is as familiar


to you in the theatres as it was to me when 

I, too, frequented those uncomfortable buildings, 

and found our popular playwrights in 

the mind to (as they thought) emulate Ibsen. 

I take it that when you asked me for a 

Don Juan play you did not want that sort of 

thing. Nobody does: the successes such plays 

sometimes obtain are due to the incidental 

conventional melodrama with which the experienced 

popular author instinctively saves 

himself from failure. But what did you want 

Owing to your unfortunate habit—you now, I 

hope, feel its inconvenience—of not explaining 

yourself, I have had to discover this for 

myself. First, then, I have had to ask myself, 

what is a Don Juan Vulgarly, a libertine. 

But your dislike of vulgarity is pushed 

to the length of a defect (universality of character 

is impossible without a share of vulgarity); 

and even if you could acquire the taste, 

you would find yourself overfed from ordinary 

sources without troubling me. So I took it that 

you demanded a Don Juan in the philosophic 

sense. 

Philosophically, Don Juan is a man who, 

though gifted enough to be exceptionally capable 

of distinguishing between good and evil, 

follows his own instincts without regard to 

the common statute, or canon law; and therefore, 

whilst gaining the ardent sympathy of 

our rebellious instincts (which are flattered 

by the brilliancies with which Don Juan associates 

them) finds himself in mortal conflict 

with existing institutions, and defends himself 

by fraud and farce as unscrupulously as a


farmer defends his crops by the same means 

against vermin. The prototypic Don Juan, invented 

early in the XVI century by a Spanish 

monk, was presented, according to the ideas 

of that time, as the enemy of God, the approach 

of whose vengeance is felt throughout 

the drama, growing in menace from minute to 

minute. No anxiety is caused on Don Juan’s 

account by any minor antagonist: he easily 

eludes the police, temporal and spiritual; and 

when an indignant father seeks private redress 

with the sword, Don Juan kills him 

without an effort. Not until the slain father 

returns from heaven as the agent of God, in 

the form of his own statue, does he prevail 

against his slayer and cast him into hell. The 

moral is a monkish one: repent and reform 

now; for to-morrow it may be too late. This 

is really the only point on which Don Juan is 

sceptical; for he is a devout believer in an ultimate 

hell, and risks damnation only because, 

as he is young, it seems so far off that repentance 

can be postponed until he has amused 

himself to his heart’s content. 

But the lesson intended by an author is 

hardly ever the lesson the world chooses to 

learn from his book. What attracts and impresses 

us in El Burlador de Sevilla is not 

the immediate urgency of repentance, but the 

heroism of daring to be the enemy of God. 

From Prometheus to my own Devil’s Disciple, 

such enemies have always been popular. Don 

Juan became such a pet that the world could 

not bear his damnation. It reconciled him sentimentally 

to God in a second version, and


clamored for his canonization for a whole century, 

thus treating him as English journalism 

has treated that comic foe of the gods, Punch. 

Moliere’s Don Juan casts back to the original 

in point of impenitence; but in piety he 

falls off greatly. True, he also proposes to repent; 

but in what terms “Oui, ma foi! il faut 

s’amender. Encore vingt où trente ans de cette 

vie-ci, et puis nous songerons a nous.” After 

Moliere comes the artist-enchanter, the master 

of masters, Mozart, who reveals the hero’s 

spirit in magical harmonies, elfin tones, and 

elate darting rhythms as of summer lightning 

made audible. Here you have freedom in love 

and in morality mocking exquisitely at slavery 

to them, and interesting you, attracting 

you, tempting you, inexplicably forcing you 

to range the hero with his enemy the statue 

on a transcendant plane, leaving the prudish 

daughter and her priggish lover on a crockery 

shelf below to live piously ever after. 

After these completed works Byron’s fragment 

does not count for much philosophically. 

Our vagabond libertines are no more interesting 

from that point of view than the sailor 

who has a wife in every port, and Byron’s hero 

is, after all, only a vagabond libertine. And 

he is dumb: he does not discuss himself with 

a Sganarelle-Leporello or with the fathers or 

brothers of his mistresses: he does not even, 

like Casanova, tell his own story. In fact he 

is not a true Don Juan at all; for he is no 

more an enemy of God than any romantic and 

adventurous young sower of wild oats. Had 

you and I been in his place at his age, who


knows whether we might not have done as 

he did, unless indeed your fastidiousness had 

saved you from the empress Catherine. Byron 

was as little of a philosopher as Peter the 

Great: both were instances of that rare and 

useful, but unedifying variation, an energetic 

genius born without the prejudices or superstitions 

of his contemporaries. The resultant 

unscrupulous freedom of thought made Byron 

a greater poet than Wordsworth just as 

it made Peter a greater king than George III; 

but as it was, after all, only a negative qualification, 

it did not prevent Peter from being an 

appalling blackguard and an arrant poltroon, 

nor did it enable Byron to become a religious 

force like Shelley. Let us, then, leave Byron’s 

Don Juan out of account. Mozart’s is the 

last of the true Don Juans; for by the time 

he was of age, his cousin Faust had, in the 

hands of Goethe, taken his place and carried 

both his warfare and his reconciliation with 

the gods far beyond mere lovemaking into politics, 

high art, schemes for reclaiming new 

continents from the ocean, and recognition of 

an eternal womanly principle in the universe. 

Goethe’s Faust and Mozart’s Don Juan were 

the last words of the XVIII century on the 

subject; and by the time the polite critics of 

the XIX century, ignoring William Blake as 

superficially as the XVIII had ignored Hogarth 

or the XVII Bunyan, had got past the 

Dickens-Macaulay Dumas-Guizot stage and 

the Stendhal-Meredith-Turgenieff stage, and 

were confronted with philosophic fiction by 

such pens as Ibsen’s and Tolstoy’s, Don Juan


had changed his sex and become Dona Juana, 

breaking out of the Doll’s House and asserting 

herself as an individual instead of a mere item 

in a moral pageant. 

Now it is all very well for you at the beginning 

of the XX century to ask me for a Don 

Juan play; but you will see from the foregoing 

survey that Don Juan is a full century out 

of date for you and for me; and if there are 

millions of less literate people who are still in 

the eighteenth century, have they not Moliere 

and Mozart, upon whose art no human hand 

can improve You would laugh at me if at 

this time of day I dealt in duels and ghosts 

and “womanly” women. As to mere libertinism, 

you would be the first to remind me that 

the Festin de Pierre of Moliere is not a play for 

amorists, and that one bar of the voluptuous 

sentimentality of Gounod or Bizet would appear 

as a licentious stain on the score of Don 

Giovanni. Even the more abstract parts of 

the Don Juan play are dilapidated past use: 

for instance, Don Juan’s supernatural antagonist 

hurled those who refuse to repent into 

lakes of burning brimstone, there to be tormented 

by devils with horns and tails. Of 

that antagonist, and of that conception of repentance, 

how much is left that could be used 

in a play by me dedicated to you On the 

other hand, those forces of middle class public 

opinion which hardly existed for a Spanish 

nobleman in the days of the first Don 

Juan, are now triumphant everywhere. Civilized 

society is one huge bourgeoisie: no nobleman 

dares now shock his greengrocer. The


women, “marchesane, principesse, cameriere, 

cittadine” and all, are become equally dangerous: 

the sex is aggressive, powerful: when 

women are wronged they do not group themselves 

pathetically to sing “Protegga il giusto 

cielo”: they grasp formidable legal and social 

weapons, and retaliate. Political parties are 

wrecked and public careers undone by a single 

indiscretion. A man had better have all the 

statues in London to supper with him, ugly 

as they are, than be brought to the bar of the 

Nonconformist Conscience by Donna Elvira. 

Excommunication has become almost as serious 

a business as it was in the X century. 

As a result, Man is no longer, like Don 

Juan, victor in the duel of sex. Whether he has 

ever really been may be doubted: at all events 

the enormous superiority of Woman’s natural 

position in this matter is telling with greater 

and greater force. As to pulling the Nonconformist 

Conscience by the beard as Don 

Juan plucked the beard of the Commandant’s 

statue in the convent of San Francisco, that is 

out of the question nowadays: prudence and 

good manners alike forbid it to a hero with 

any mind. Besides, it is Don Juan’s own beard 

that is in danger of plucking. Far from relapsing 

into hypocrisy, as Sganarelle feared, 

he has unexpectedly discovered a moral in his 

immorality. The growing recognition of his 

new point of view is heaping responsibility 

on him. His former jests he has had to take 

as seriously as I have had to take some of 

the jests of Mr. W. S. Gilbert. His scepticism, 

once his least tolerated quality, has now tri-


umphed so completely that he can no longer 

assert himself by witty negations, and must, 

to save himself from cipherdom, find an affirmative 

position. His thousand and three affairs 

of gallantry, after becoming, at most, two 

immature intrigues leading to sordid and prolonged 

complications and humiliations, have 

been discarded altogether as unworthy of his 

philosophic dignity and compromising to his 

newly acknowledged position as the founder 

of a school. Instead of pretending to read Ovid 

he does actually read Schopenhaur and Nietzsche, 

studies Westermarck, and is concerned 

for the future of the race instead of for the 

freedom of his own instincts. Thus his profligacy 

and his dare-devil airs have gone the way 

of his sword and mandoline into the rag shop 

of anachronisms and superstitions. In fact, 

he is now more Hamlet than Don Juan; for 

though the lines put into the actor’s mouth to 

indicate to the pit that Hamlet is a philosopher 

are for the most part mere harmonious 

platitude which, with a little debasement of 

the word-music, would be properer to Pecksniff, 

yet if you separate the real hero, inarticulate 

and unintelligible to himself except 

in flashes of inspiration, from the performer 

who has to talk at any cost through five acts; 

and if you also do what you must always do 

in Shakespear’s tragedies: that is, dissect out 

the absurd sensational incidents and physical 

violences of the borrowed story from the genuine 

Shakespearian tissue, you will get a true 

Promethean foe of the gods, whose instinctive 

attitude towards women much resembles that


to which Don Juan is now driven. From this 

point of view Hamlet was a developed Don 

Juan whom Shakespear palmed off as a reputable 

man just as he palmed poor Macbeth 

off as a murderer. To-day the palming off is no 

longer necessary (at least on your plane and 

mine) because Don Juanism is no longer misunderstood 

as mere Casanovism. Don Juan 

himself is almost ascetic in his desire to avoid 

that misunderstanding; and so my attempt to 

bring him up to date by launching him as a 

modern Englishman into a modern English 

environment has produced a figure superficially 

quite unlike the hero of Mozart. 

And yet I have not the heart to disappoint 

you wholly of another glimpse of the 

Mozartian dissoluto punito and his antagonist 

the statue. I feel sure you would like to know 

more of that statue— to draw him out when 

he is off duty, so to speak. To gratify you, 

I have resorted to the trick of the strolling 

theatrical manager who advertizes the pantomime 

of Sinbad the Sailor with a stock of 

second-hand picture posters designed for Ali 

Baba. He simply thrusts a few oil jars into the 

valley of diamonds, and so fulfils the promise 

held out by the hoardings to the public eye. 

I have adapted this simple device to our occasion 

by thrusting into my perfectly modern 

three-act play a totally extraneous act in 

which my hero, enchanted by the air of the 

Sierra, has a dream in which his Mozartian 

ancestor appears and philosophizes at great 

length in a Shavio-Socratic dialogue with the 

lady, the statue, and the devil.


But this pleasantry is not the essence of 

the play. Over this essence I have no control. 

You propound a certain social substance, 

sexual attraction to wit, for dramatic distillation; 

and I distil it for you. I do not adulterate 

the product with aphrodisiacs nor dilute 

it with romance and water; for I am merely 

executing your commission, not producing a 

popular play for the market. You must therefore 

(unless, like most wise men, you read the 

play first and the preface afterwards) prepare 

yourself to face a trumpery story of modern 

London life, a life in which, as you know, the 

ordinary man’s main business is to get means 

to keep up the position and habits of a gentleman, 

and the ordinary woman’s business is to 

get married. In 9,999 cases out of 10,000, you 

can count on their doing nothing, whether noble 

or base, that conflicts with these ends; and 

that assurance is what you rely on as their 

religion, their morality, their principles, their 

patriotism, their reputation, their honor and 

so forth. 

On the whole, this is a sensible and satisfactory 

foundation for society. Money means 

nourishment and marriage means children; 

and that men should put nourishment first 

and women children first is, broadly speaking, 

the law of Nature and not the dictate of 

personal ambition. The secret of the prosaic 

man’s success, such as it is, is the simplicity 

with which he pursues these ends: the secret 

of the artistic man’s failure, such as that is, 

is the versatility with which he strays in all 

directions after secondary ideals. The artist is


either a poet or a scallawag: as poet, he cannot 

see, as the prosaic man does, that chivalry is 

at bottom only romantic suicide: as scallawag, 

he cannot see that it does not pay to spunge 

and beg and lie and brag and neglect his 

person. Therefore do not misunderstand my 

plain statement of the fundamental constitution 

of London society as an Irishman’s reproach 

to your nation. From the day I first 

set foot on this foreign soil I knew the value of 

the prosaic qualities of which Irishmen teach 

Englishmen to be ashamed as well as I knew 

the vanity of the poetic qualities of which Englishmen 

teach Irishmen to be proud. For the 

Irishman instinctively disparages the quality 

which makes the Englishman dangerous to 

him; and the Englishman instinctively flatters 

the fault that makes the Irishman harmless 

and amusing to him. What is wrong with 

the prosaic Englishman is what is wrong with 

the prosaic men of all countries: stupidity. The 

vitality which places nourishment and children 

first, heaven and hell a somewhat remote 

second, and the health of society as an 

organic whole nowhere, may muddle successfully 

through the comparatively tribal stages 

of gregariousness; but in nineteenth century 

nations and twentieth century empires the 

determination of every man to be rich at all 

costs, and of every woman to be married at all 

costs, must, without a highly scientific social 

organization, produce a ruinous development 

of poverty, celibacy, prostitution, infant mortality, 

adult degeneracy, and everything that 

wise men most dread. In short, there is no fu-


ture for men, however brimming with crude 

vitality, who are neither intelligent nor politically 

educated enough to be Socialists. So do 

not misunderstand me in the other direction 

either: if I appreciate the vital qualities of the 

Englishman as I appreciate the vital qualities 

of the bee, I do not guarantee the Englishman 

against being, like the bee (or the Canaanite) 

smoked out and unloaded of his honey by beings 

inferior to himself in simple acquisitiveness, 

combativeness, and fecundity, but superior 

to him in imagination and cunning. 

The Don Juan play, however, is to deal with 

sexual attraction, and not with nutrition, and 

to deal with it in a society in which the serious 

business of sex is left by men to women, as the 

serious business of nutrition is left by women 

to men. That the men, to protect themselves 

against a too aggressive prosecution of the 

women’s business, have set up a feeble romantic 

convention that the initiative in sex 

business must always come from the man, is 

true; but the pretence is so shallow that even 

in the theatre, that last sanctuary of unreality, 

it imposes only on the inexperienced. In 

Shakespear’s plays the woman always takes 

the initiative. In his problem plays and his 

popular plays alike the love interest is the 

interest of seeing the woman hunt the man 

down. She may do it by blandishment, like 

Rosalind, or by stratagem, like Mariana; but 

in every case the relation between the woman 

and the man is the same: she is the pursuer 

and contriver, he the pursued and disposed of. 

When she is baffled, like Ophelia, she goes


mad and commits suicide; and the man goes 

straight from her funeral to a fencing match. 

No doubt Nature, with very young creatures, 

may save the woman the trouble of scheming: 

Prospero knows that he has only to throw Ferdinand 

and Miranda together and they will 

mate like a pair of doves; and there is no need 

for Perdita to capture Florizel as the lady doctor 

in All’s Well That Ends Well (an early Ibsenite 

heroine) captures Bertram. But the 

mature cases all illustrate the Shakespearian 

law. The one apparent exception, Petruchio, is 

not a real one: he is most carefully characterized 

as a purely commercial matrimonial adventurer. 

Once he is assured that Katharine 

has money, he undertakes to marry her before 

he has seen her. In real life we find not only 

Petruchios, but Mantalinis and Dobbins who 

pursue women with appeals to their pity or 

jealousy or vanity, or cling to them in a romantically 

infatuated way. Such effeminates do 

not count in the world scheme: even Bunsby 

dropping like a fascinated bird into the jaws 

of Mrs. MacStinger is by comparison a true 

tragic object of pity and terror. I find in my 

own plays that Woman, projecting herself dramatically 

by my hands (a process over which 

I assure you I have no more real control than 

I have over my wife), behaves just as Woman 

did in the plays of Shakespear. 

And so your Don Juan has come to birth 

as a stage projection of the tragi-comic love 

chase of the man by the woman; and my Don 

Juan is the quarry instead of the huntsman. 

Yet he is a true Don Juan, with a sense of re-


ality that disables convention, defying to the 

last the fate which finally overtakes him. The 

woman’s need of him to enable her to carry 

on Nature’s most urgent work, does not prevail 

against him until his resistance gathers 

her energy to a climax at which she dares to 

throw away her customary exploitations of the 

conventional affectionate and dutiful poses, 

and claim him by natural right for a purpose 

that far transcends their mortal personal purposes. 

Among the friends to whom I have read 

this play in manuscript are some of our own 

sex who are shocked at the “unscrupulousness,” 

meaning the total disregard of masculine 

fastidiousness, with which the woman 

pursues her purpose. It does not occur to 

them that if women were as fastidious as men, 

morally or physically, there would be an end 

of the race. Is there anything meaner then to 

throw necessary work upon other people and 

then disparage it as unworthy and indelicate. 

We laugh at the haughty American nation because 

it makes the negro clean its boots and 

then proves the moral and physical inferiority 

of the negro by the fact that he is a shoeblack; 

but we ourselves throw the whole drudgery of 

creation on one sex, and then imply that no 

female of any womanliness or delicacy would 

initiate any effort in that direction. There 

are no limits to male hypocrisy in this matter. 

No doubt there are moments when man’s 

sexual immunities are made acutely humiliating 

to him. When the terrible moment of 

birth arrives, its supreme importance and its


superhuman effort and peril, in which the father 

has no part, dwarf him into the meanest 

insignificance: he slinks out of the way of 

the humblest petticoat, happy if he be poor 

enough to be pushed out of the house to outface 

his ignominy by drunken rejoicings. But 

when the crisis is over he takes his revenge, 

swaggering as the breadwinner, and speaking 

of Woman’s “sphere” with condescension, even 

with chivalry, as if the kitchen and the nursery 

were less important than the office in the 

city. When his swagger is exhausted he drivels 

into erotic poetry or sentimental uxoriousness; 

and the Tennysonian King Arthur posing 

as Guinevere becomes Don Quixote grovelling 

before Dulcinea. You must admit that 

here Nature beats Comedy out of the field: the 

wildest hominist or feminist farce is insipid 

after the most commonplace “slice of life.” The 

pretence that women do not take the initiative 

is part of the farce. Why, the whole world 

is strewn with snares, traps, gins and pitfalls 

for the capture of men by women. Give 

women the vote, and in five years there will be 

a crushing tax on bachelors. Men, on the other 

hand, attach penalties to marriage, depriving 

women of property, of the franchise, of the 

free use of their limbs, of that ancient symbol 

of immortality, the right to make oneself 

at home in the house of God by taking off the 

hat, of everything that he can force Woman to 

dispense with without compelling himself to 

dispense with her. All in vain. Woman must 

marry because the race must perish without 

her travail: if the risk of death and the cer-


tainty of pain, danger and unutterable discomforts 

cannot deter her, slavery and swaddled 

ankles will not. And yet we assume that 

the force that carries women through all these 

perils and hardships, stops abashed before the 

primnesses of our behavior for young ladies. 

It is assumed that the woman must wait, motionless, 

until she is wooed. Nay, she often 

does wait motionless. That is how the spider 

waits for the fly. But the spider spins her web. 

And if the fly, like my hero, shows a strength 

that promises to extricate him, how swiftly 

does she abandon her pretence of passiveness, 

and openly fling coil after coil about him until 

he is secured for ever! 

If the really impressive books and other 

art-works of the world were produced by ordinary 

men, they would express more fear of 

women’s pursuit than love of their illusory 

beauty. But ordinary men cannot produce really 

impressive art-works. Those who can are 

men of genius: that is, men selected by Nature 

to carry on the work of building up an intellectual 

consciousness of her own instinctive 

purpose. Accordingly, we observe in the man 

of genius all the unscrupulousness and all the 

“self-sacrifice” (the two things are the same) 

of Woman. He will risk the stake and the 

cross; starve, when necessary, in a garret all 

his life; study women and live on their work 

and care as Darwin studied worms and lived 

upon sheep; work his nerves into rags without 

payment, a sublime altruist in his disregard of 

himself, an atrocious egotist in his disregard 

of others. Here Woman meets a purpose as


impersonal, as irresistible as her own; and the 

clash is sometimes tragic. When it is complicated 

by the genius being a woman, then the 

game is one for a king of critics: your George 

Sand becomes a mother to gain experience for 

the novelist and to develop her, and gobbles 

up men of genius, Chopins, Mussets and the 

like, as mere hors d’oeuvres. 

I state the extreme case, of course; but 

what is true of the great man who incarnates 

the philosophic consciousness of Life and the 

woman who incarnates its fecundity, is true 

in some degree of all geniuses and all women. 

Hence it is that the world’s books get written, 

its pictures painted, its statues modelled, 

its symphonies composed, by people who are 

free of the otherwise universal dominion of 

the tyranny of sex. Which leads us to the 

conclusion, astonishing to the vulgar, that art, 

instead of being before all things the expression 

of the normal sexual situation, is really 

the only department in which sex is a superseded 

and secondary power, with its consciousness 

so confused and its purpose so perverted, 

that its ideas are mere fantasy to common 

men. Whether the artist becomes poet 

or philosopher, moralist or founder of a religion, 

his sexual doctrine is nothing but a 

barren special pleading for pleasure, excitement, 

and knowledge when he is young, and 

for contemplative tranquillity when he is old 

and satiated. Romance and Asceticism, Amorism 

and Puritanism are equally unreal in the 

great Philistine world. The world shown us in 

books, whether the books be confessed epics


or professed gospels, or in codes, or in political 

orations, or in philosophic systems, is 

not the main world at all: it is only the selfconsciousness 

of certain abnormal people who 

have the specific artistic talent and temperament. 

A serious matter this for you and me, 

because the man whose consciousness does 

not correspond to that of the majority is a 

madman; and the old habit of worshipping 

madmen is giving way to the new habit of 

locking them up. And since what we call education 

and culture is for the most part nothing 

but the substitution of reading for experience, 

of literature for life, of the obsolete fictitious 

for the contemporary real, education, as 

you no doubt observed at Oxford, destroys, by 

supplantation, every mind that is not strong 

enough to see through the imposture and to 

use the great Masters of Arts as what they 

really are and no more: that is, patentees of 

highly questionable methods of thinking, and 

manufacturers of highly questionable, and for 

the majority but half valid representations of 

life. The schoolboy who uses his Homer to 

throw at his fellow’s head makes perhaps the 

safest and most rational use of him; and I observe 

with reassurance that you occasionally 

do the same, in your prime, with your Aristotle. 

Fortunately for us, whose minds have been 

so overwhelmingly sophisticated by literature, 

what produces all these treatises and poems 

and scriptures of one sort or another is 

the struggle of Life to become divinely conscious 

of itself instead of blindly stumbling


hither and thither in the line of least resistance. 

Hence there is a driving towards 

truth in all books on matters where the writer, 

though exceptionally gifted is normally constituted, 

and has no private axe to grind. Copernicus 

had no motive for misleading his fellowmen 

as to the place of the sun in the solar system: 

he looked for it as honestly as a shepherd 

seeks his path in a mist. But Copernicus 

would not have written love stories scientifically. 

When it comes to sex relations, 

the man of genius does not share the common 

man’s danger of capture, nor the woman 

of genius the common woman’s overwhelming 

specialization. And that is why our scriptures 

and other art works, when they deal 

with love, turn from honest attempts at science 

in physics to romantic nonsense, erotic 

ecstasy, or the stern asceticism of satiety (“the 

road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom” 

said William Blake; for “you never know what 

is enough unless you know what is more than 

enough”). 

There is a political aspect of this sex question 

which is too big for my comedy, and too 

momentous to be passed over without culpable 

frivolity. It is impossible to demonstrate 

that the initiative in sex transactions 

remains with Woman, and has been confirmed 

to her, so far, more and more by the suppression 

of rapine and discouragement of importunity, 

without being driven to very serious 

reflections on the fact that this initiative is 

politically the most important of all the initiatives, 

because our political experiment of


democracy, the last refuge of cheap misgovernment, 

will ruin us if our citizens are ill 

bred. 

When we two were born, this country was 

still dominated by a selected class bred by political 

marriages. The commercial class had 

not then completed the first twenty-five years 

of its new share of political power; and it 

was itself selected by money qualification, and 

bred, if not by political marriage, at least by 

a pretty rigorous class marriage. Aristocracy 

and plutocracy still furnish the figureheads 

of politics; but they are now dependent on 

the votes of the promiscuously bred masses. 

And this, if you please, at the very moment 

when the political problem, having suddenly 

ceased to mean a very limited and occasional 

interference, mostly by way of jobbing public 

appointments, in the mismanagement of 

a tight but parochial little island, with occasional 

meaningless prosecution of dynastic 

wars, has become the industrial reorganization 

of Britain, the construction of a practically 

international Commonwealth, and the 

partition of the whole of Africa and perhaps 

the whole of Asia by the civilized Powers. Can 

you believe that the people whose conceptions 

of society and conduct, whose power of attention 

and scope of interest, are measured by 

the British theatre as you know it to-day, can 

either handle this colossal task themselves, 

or understand and support the sort of mind 

and character that is (at least comparatively) 

capable of handling it For remember: what 

our voters are in the pit and gallery they are


also in the polling booth. We are all now 

under what Burke called “the hoofs of the 

swinish multitude.” Burke’s language gave 

great offence because the implied exceptions 

to its universal application made it a class insult; 

and it certainly was not for the pot to 

call the kettle black. The aristocracy he defended, 

in spite of the political marriages by 

which it tried to secure breeding for itself, 

had its mind undertrained by silly schoolmasters 

and governesses, its character corrupted 

by gratuitous luxury, its self-respect adulterated 

to complete spuriousness by flattery and 

flunkeyism. It is no better to-day and never 

will be any better: our very peasants have 

something morally hardier in them that culminates 

occasionally in a Bunyan, a Burns, or 

a Carlyle. But observe, this aristocracy, which 

was overpowered from 1832 to 1885 by the 

middle class, has come back to power by the 

votes of “the swinish multitude.” Tom Paine 

has triumphed over Edmund Burke; and the 

swine are now courted electors. How many 

of their own class have these electors sent to 

parliament Hardly a dozen out of 670, and 

these only under the persuasion of conspicuous 

personal qualifications and popular eloquence. 

The multitude thus pronounces judgment 

on its own units: it admits itself unfit 

to govern, and will vote only for a man morphologically 

and generically transfigured by 

palatial residence and equipage, by transcendent 

tailoring, by the glamor of aristocratic 

kinship. Well, we two know these transfigured 

persons, these college passmen, these


well groomed monocular Algys and Bobbies, 

these cricketers to whom age brings golf instead 

of wisdom, these plutocratic products of 

“the nail and sarspan business as he got his 

money by.” Do you know whether to laugh 

or cry at the notion that they, poor devils! 

will drive a team of continents as they drive 

a four-in-hand; turn a jostling anarchy of casual 

trade and speculation into an ordered 

productivity; and federate our colonies into 

a world-Power of the first magnitude Give 

these people the most perfect political constitution 

and the soundest political program that 

benevolent omniscience can devise for them, 

and they will interpret it into mere fashionable 

folly or canting charity as infallibly as a 

savage converts the philosophical theology of 

a Scotch missionary into crude African idolatry. 

I do not know whether you have any illusions 

left on the subject of education, progress, 

and so forth. I have none. Any pamphleteer 

can show the way to better things; but when 

there is no will there is no way. My nurse 

was fond of remarking that you cannot make 

a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and the more I 

see of the efforts of our churches and universities 

and literary sages to raise the mass above 

its own level, the more convinced I am that 

my nurse was right. Progress can do nothing 

but make the most of us all as we are, and 

that most would clearly not be enough even if 

those who are already raised out of the lowest 

abysses would allow the others a chance. 

The bubble of Heredity has been pricked: the


certainty that acquirements are negligible as 

elements in practical heredity has demolished 

the hopes of the educationists as well as the 

terrors of the degeneracy mongers; and we 

know now that there is no hereditary “governing 

class” any more than a hereditary hooliganism. 

We must either breed political capacity 

or be ruined by Democracy, which was 

forced on us by the failure of the older alternatives. 

Yet if Despotism failed only for want 

of a capable benevolent despot, what chance 

has Democracy, which requires a whole population 

of capable voters: that is, of political 

critics who, if they cannot govern in person 

for lack of spare energy or specific talent 

for administration, can at least recognize and 

appreciate capacity and benevolence in others, 

and so govern through capably benevolent 

representatives Where are such voters to be 

found to-day Nowhere. Promiscuous breeding 

has produced a weakness of character that 

is too timid to face the full stringency of a thoroughly 

competitive struggle for existence and 

too lazy and petty to organize the commonwealth 

co-operatively. Being cowards, we defeat 

natural selection under cover of philanthropy: 

being sluggards, we neglect artificial 

selection under cover of delicacy and morality. 

Yet we must get an electorate of capable 

critics or collapse as Rome and Egypt collapsed. 

At this moment the Roman decadent 

phase of panem et circenses is being inaugurated 

under our eyes. Our newspapers and 

melodramas are blustering about our imperial 

destiny; but our eyes and hearts turn


eagerly to the American millionaire. As his 

hand goes down to his pocket, our fingers 

go up to the brims of our hats by instinct. 

Our ideal prosperity is not the prosperity of 

the industrial north, but the prosperity of 

the Isle of Wight, of Folkestone and Ramsgate, 

of Nice and Monte Carlo. That is the 

only prosperity you see on the stage, where 

the workers are all footmen, parlourmaids, 

comic lodging-letters and fashionable professional 

men, whilst the heroes and heroines 

are miraculously provided with unlimited dividends, 

and eat gratuitously, like the knights 

in Don Quixote’s books of chivalry. 

The city papers prate of the competition of 

Bombay with Manchester and the like. The 

real competition is the competition of Regent 

Street with the Rue de Rivoli, of Brighton 

and the south coast with the Riviera, for 

the spending money of the American Trusts. 

What is all this growing love of pageantry, 

this effusive loyalty, this officious rising and 

uncovering at a wave from a flag or a blast 

from a brass band Imperialism: Not a bit of 

it. Obsequiousness, servility, cupidity roused 

by the prevailing smell of money. When Mr. 

Carnegie rattled his millions in his pockets all 

England became one rapacious cringe. Only, 

when Rhodes (who had probably been reading 

my Socialism for Millionaires) left word 

that no idler was to inherit his estate, the 

bent backs straightened mistrustfully for a 

moment. Could it be that the Diamond King 

was no gentleman after all However, it was 

easy to ignore a rich man’s solecism. The un-


gentlemanly clause was not mentioned again; 

and the backs soon bowed themselves back 

into their natural shape. 

But I hear you asking me in alarm whether 

I have actually put all this tub thumping into 

a Don Juan comedy. I have not. I have 

only made my Don Juan a political pamphleteer, 

and given you his pamphlet in full by 

way of appendix. You will find it at the 

end of the book. I am sorry to say that it 

is a common practice with romancers to announce 

their hero as a man of extraordinary 

genius, and to leave his works entirely to the 

reader’s imagination; so that at the end of the 

book you whisper to yourself ruefully that but 

for the author’s solemn preliminary assurance 

you should hardly have given the gentleman 

credit for ordinary good sense. You cannot accuse 

me of this pitiable barrenness, this feeble 

evasion. I not only tell you that my hero 

wrote a revolutionists’ handbook: I give you 

the handbook at full length for your edification 

if you care to read it. And in that handbook 

you will find the politics of the sex question 

as I conceive Don Juan’s descendant to 

understand them. Not that I disclaim the 

fullest responsibility for his opinions and for 

those of all my characters, pleasant and unpleasant. 

They are all right from their several 

points of view; and their points of view 

are, for the dramatic moment, mine also. This 

may puzzle the people who believe that there 

is such a thing as an absolutely right point 

of view, usually their own. It may seem to 

them that nobody who doubts this can be in


a state of grace. However that may be, it is 

certainly true that nobody who agrees with 

them can possibly be a dramatist, or indeed 

anything else that turns upon a knowledge of 

mankind. Hence it has been pointed out that 

Shakespear had no conscience. Neither have 

I, in that sense. 

You may, however, remind me that this digression 

of mine into politics was preceded 

by a very convincing demonstration that the 

artist never catches the point of view of the 

common man on the question of sex, because 

he is not in the same predicament. I first 

prove that anything I write on the relation of 

the sexes is sure to be misleading; and then I 

proceed to write a Don Juan play. Well, if you 

insist on asking me why I behave in this absurd 

way, I can only reply that you asked me 

to, and that in any case my treatment of the 

subject may be valid for the artist, amusing 

to the amateur, and at least intelligible and 

therefore possibly suggestive to the Philistine. 

Every man who records his illusions is providing 

data for the genuinely scientific psychology 

which the world still waits for. I plank 

down my view of the existing relations of men 

to women in the most highly civilized society 

for what it is worth. It is a view like any other 

view and no more, neither true nor false, but, 

I hope, a way of looking at the subject which 

throws into the familiar order of cause and effect 

a sufficient body of fact and experience to 

be interesting to you, if not to the play-going 

public of London. I have certainly shown little 

consideration for that public in this enter-


prise; but I know that it has the friendliest 

disposition towards you and me as far as it 

has any consciousness of our existence, and 

quite understands that what I write for you 

must pass at a considerable height over its 

simple romantic head. It will take my books 

as read and my genius for granted, trusting 

me to put forth work of such quality as shall 

bear out its verdict. So we may disport ourselves 

on our own plane to the top of our 

bent; and if any gentleman points out that 

neither this epistle dedicatory nor the dream 

of Don Juan in the third act of the ensuing 

comedy is suitable for immediate production 

at a popular theatre we need not contradict 

him. Napoleon provided Talma with a pit of 

kings, with what effect on Talma’s acting is 

not recorded. As for me, what I have always 

wanted is a pit of philosophers; and this is a 

play for such a pit. 

I should make formal acknowledgment to 

the authors whom I have pillaged in the following 

pages if I could recollect them all. The 

theft of the brigand-poetaster from Sir Arthur 

Conan Doyle is deliberate; and the metamorphosis 

of Leporello into Enry Straker, motor 

engineer and New Man, is an intentional dramatic 

sketch for the contemporary embryo of 

Mr. H. G. Wells’s anticipation of the efficient 

engineering class which will, he hopes, finally 

sweep the jabberers out of the way of civilization. 

Mr. Barrio has also, whilst I am correcting 

my proofs, delighted London with a servant 

who knows more than his masters. The 

conception of Mendoza Limited I trace back to


a certain West Indian colonial secretary, who, 

at a period when he and I and Mr. Sidney 

Webb were sowing our political wild oats as 

a sort of Fabian Three Musketeers, without 

any prevision of the surprising respectability 

of the crop that followed, recommended Webb, 

the encyclopedic and inexhaustible, to form 

himself into a company for the benefit of the 

shareholders. Octavius I take over unaltered 

from Mozart; and I hereby authorize any actor 

who impersonates him, to sing “Dalla sua 

pace” (if he can) at any convenient moment 

during the representation. Ann was suggested 

to me by the fifteenth century Dutch 

morality called Everyman, which Mr. William 

Poel has lately resuscitated so triumphantly. 

I trust he will work that vein further, and recognize 

that Elizabethan Renascence fustian is 

no more bearable after medieval poesy than 

Scribe after Ibsen. As I sat watching Everyman 

at the Charterhouse, I said to myself 

Why not Everywoman Ann was the result: 

every woman is not Ann; but Ann is Everywoman. 

That the author of Everyman was no mere 

artist, but an artist-philosopher, and that the 

artist-philosophers are the only sort of artists 

I take quite seriously, will be no news to you. 

Even Plato and Boswell, as the dramatists 

who invented Socrates and Dr Johnson, impress 

me more deeply than the romantic playwrights. 

Ever since, as a boy, I first breathed 

the air of the transcendental regions at a performance 

of Mozart’s Zauberflöte, I have been 

proof against the garish splendors and alco-


holic excitements of the ordinary stage combinations 

of Tappertitian romance with the police 

intelligence. Bunyan, Blake, Hogarth and 

Turner (these four apart and above all the English 

Classics), Goethe, Shelley, Schopenhaur, 

Wagner, Ibsen, Morris, Tolstoy, and Nietzsche 

are among the writers whose peculiar sense of 

the world I recognize as more or less akin to 

my own. Mark the word peculiar. I read Dickens 

and Shakespear without shame or stint; 

but their pregnant observations and demonstrations 

of life are not co-ordinated into any 

philosophy or religion: on the contrary, Dickens’s 

sentimental assumptions are violently 

contradicted by his observations; and Shakespear’s 

pessimism is only his wounded humanity. 

Both have the specific genius of the 

fictionist and the common sympathies of human 

feeling and thought in pre-eminent degree. 

They are often saner and shrewder than 

the philosophers just as Sancho-Panza was often 

saner and shrewder than Don Quixote. 

They clear away vast masses of oppressive 

gravity by their sense of the ridiculous, which 

is at bottom a combination of sound moral 

judgment with lighthearted good humor. But 

they are concerned with the diversities of the 

world instead of with its unities: they are so 

irreligious that they exploit popular religion 

for professional purposes without delicacy or 

scruple (for example, Sydney Carton and the 

ghost in Hamlet!): they are anarchical, and 

cannot balance their exposures of Angelo and 

Dogberry, Sir Leicester Dedlock and Mr. Tite 

Barnacle, with any portrait of a prophet or


a worthy leader: they have no constructive 

ideas: they regard those who have them as 

dangerous fanatics: in all their fictions there 

is no leading thought or inspiration for which 

any man could conceivably risk the spoiling 

of his hat in a shower, much less his life. 

Both are alike forced to borrow motives for the 

more strenuous actions of their personages 

from the common stockpot of melodramatic 

plots; so that Hamlet has to be stimulated 

by the prejudices of a policeman and Macbeth 

by the cupidities of a bushranger. Dickens, 

without the excuse of having to manufacture 

motives for Hamlets and Macbeths, superfluously 

punt his crew down the stream of his 

monthly parts by mechanical devices which I 

leave you to describe, my own memory being 

quite baffled by the simplest question as to 

Monks in Oliver Twist, or the long lost parentage 

of Smike, or the relations between the 

Dorrit and Clennam families so inopportunely 

discovered by Monsieur Rigaud Blandois. The 

truth is, the world was to Shakespear a great 

“stage of fools” on which he was utterly bewildered. 

He could see no sort of sense in living 

at all; and Dickens saved himself from the 

despair of the dream in The Chimes by taking 

the world for granted and busying himself 

with its details. Neither of them could 

do anything with a serious positive character: 

they could place a human figure before you 

with perfect verisimilitude; but when the moment 

came for making it live and move, they 

found, unless it made them laugh, that they 

had a puppet on their hands, and had to in-


vent some artificial external stimulus to make 

it work. This is what is the matter with Hamlet 

all through: he has no will except in his 

bursts of temper. Foolish Bardolaters make a 

virtue of this after their fashion: they declare 

that the play is the tragedy of irresolution; 

but all Shakespear’s projections of the deepest 

humanity he knew have the same defect: 

their characters and manners are lifelike; but 

their actions are forced on them from without, 

and the external force is grotesquely inappropriate 

except when it is quite conventional, as 

in the case of Henry V. Falstaff is more vivid 

than any of these serious reflective characters, 

because he is self-acting: his motives are 

his own appetites and instincts and humors. 

Richard III, too, is delightful as the whimsical 

comedian who stops a funeral to make love to 

the corpse’s widow; but when, in the next act, 

he is replaced by a stage villain who smothers 

babies and offs with people’s heads, we 

are revolted at the imposture and repudiate 

the changeling. Faulconbridge, Coriolanus, 

Leontes are admirable descriptions of instinctive 

temperaments: indeed the play of Coriolanus 

is the greatest of Shakespear’s comedies; 

but description is not philosophy; and 

comedy neither compromises the author nor 

reveals him. He must be judged by those characters 

into which he puts what he knows of 

himself, his Hamlets and Macbeths and Lears 

and Prosperos. If these characters are agonizing 

in a void about factitious melodramatic 

murders and revenges and the like, whilst the 

comic characters walk with their feet on solid


ground, vivid and amusing, you know that 

the author has much to show and nothing to 

teach. The comparison between Falstaff and 

Prospero is like the comparison between Micawber 

and David Copperfield. At the end 

of the book you know Micawber, whereas you 

only know what has happened to David, and 

are not interested enough in him to wonder 

what his politics or religion might be if anything 

so stupendous as a religious or political 

idea, or a general idea of any sort, were 

to occur to him. He is tolerable as a child; 

but he never becomes a man, and might be 

left out of his own biography altogether but 

for his usefulness as a stage confidant, a Horatio 

or “Charles his friend” what they call on 

the stage a feeder. 

Now you cannot say this of the works of 

the artist-philosophers. You cannot say it, for 

instance, of The Pilgrim’s Progress. Put your 

Shakespearian hero and coward, Henry V and 

Pistol or Parolles, beside Mr. Valiant and Mr. 

Fearing, and you have a sudden revelation of 

the abyss that lies between the fashionable 

author who could see nothing in the world but 

personal aims and the tragedy of their disappointment 

or the comedy of their incongruity, 

and the field preacher who achieved virtue 

and courage by identifying himself with the 

purpose of the world as he understood it. The 

contrast is enormous: Bunyan’s coward stirs 

your blood more than Shakespear’s hero, who 

actually leaves you cold and secretly hostile. 

You suddenly see that Shakespear, with all 

his flashes and divinations, never understood


virtue and courage, never conceived how any 

man who was not a fool could, like Bunyan’s 

hero, look back from the brink of the river 

of death over the strife and labor of his pilgrimage, 

and say “yet do I not repent me”; or, 

with the panache of a millionaire, bequeath 

“my sword to him that shall succeed me in 

my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to 

him that can get it.” This is the true joy in 

life, the being used for a purpose recognized 

by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly 

worn out before you are thrown on the 

scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead 

of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and 

grievances complaining that the world will 

not devote itself to making you happy. And 

also the only real tragedy in life is the being 

used by personally minded men for purposes 

which you recognize to be base. All the rest 

is at worst mere misfortune or mortality: this 

alone is misery, slavery, hell on earth; and the 

revolt against it is the only force that offers 

a man’s work to the poor artist, whom our 

personally minded rich people would so willingly 

employ as pandar, buffoon, beauty monger, 

sentimentalizer and the like. 

It may seem a long step from Bunyan to 

Nietzsche; but the difference between their 

conclusions is purely formal. Bunyan’s perception 

that righteousness is filthy rags, his 

scorn for Mr. Legality in the village of Morality, 

his defiance of the Church as the supplanter 

of religion, his insistence on courage 

as the virtue of virtues, his estimate of the 

career of the conventionally respectable and


sensible Worldly Wiseman as no better at 

bottom than the life and death of Mr. Badman: 

all this, expressed by Bunyan in the 

terms of a tinker’s theology, is what Nietzsche 

has expressed in terms of post-Darwinian, 

post-Schopenhaurian philosophy; Wagner in 

terms of polytheistic mythology; and Ibsen 

in terms of mid-XIX century Parisian dramaturgy. 

Nothing is new in these matters except 

their novelties: for instance, it is a novelty 

to call Justification by Faith “Wille,” and 

Justification by Works “Vorstellung.” The sole 

use of the novelty is that you and I buy and 

read Schopenhaur’s treatise on Will and Representation 

when we should not dream of buying 

a set of sermons on Faith versus Works. 

At bottom the controversy is the same, and 

the dramatic results are the same. Bunyan 

makes no attempt to present his pilgrims as 

more sensible or better conducted than Mr. 

Worldly Wiseman. Mr. W. W.’s worst enemies, 

as Mr. Embezzler, Mr. Never-go-to-Church-on- 

Sunday, Mr. Bad Form, Mr. Murderer, Mr. 

Burglar, Mr. Co-respondent, Mr. Blackmailer, 

Mr. Cad, Mr. Drunkard, Mr. Labor Agitator 

and so forth, can read the Pilgrim’s Progress 

without finding a word said against them; 

whereas the respectable people who snub 

them and put them in prison, such as Mr. 

W. W. himself and his young friend Civility; 

Formalist and Hypocrisy; Wildhead, Inconsiderate, 

and Pragmatick (who were clearly 

young university men of good family and high 

feeding); that brisk lad Ignorance, Talkative, 

By-Ends of Fairspeech and his mother-in-law


Lady Feigning, and other reputable gentlemen 

and citizens, catch it very severely. Even 

Little Faith, though he gets to heaven at 

last, is given to understand that it served 

him right to be mobbed by the brothers Faint 

Heart, Mistrust, and Guilt, all three recognized 

members of respectable society and veritable 

pillars of the law. The whole allegory 

is a consistent attack on morality and 

respectability, without a word that one can 

remember against vice and crime. Exactly 

what is complained of in Nietzsche and Ibsen, 

is it not And also exactly what would 

be complained of in all the literature which is 

great enough and old enough to have attained 

canonical rank, officially or unofficially, were 

it not that books are admitted to the canon 

by a compact which confesses their greatness 

in consideration of abrogating their meaning; 

so that the reverend rector can agree 

with the prophet Micah as to his inspired 

style without being committed to any complicity 

in Micah’s furiously Radical opinions. 

Why, even I, as I force myself; pen in hand, 

into recognition and civility, find all the force 

of my onslaught destroyed by a simple policy 

of non-resistance. In vain do I redouble 

the violence of the language in which I proclaim 

my heterodoxies. I rail at the theistic 

credulity of Voltaire, the amoristic superstition 

of Shelley, the revival of tribal soothsaying 

and idolatrous rites which Huxley called 

Science and mistook for an advance on the 

Pentateuch, no less than at the welter of ecclesiastical 

and professional humbug which


saves the face of the stupid system of violence 

and robbery which we call Law and Industry. 

Even atheists reproach me with infidelity 

and anarchists with nihilism because I cannot 

endure their moral tirades. And yet, instead 

of exclaiming “Send this inconceivable 

Satanist to the stake,” the respectable newspapers 

pith me by announcing “another book 

by this brilliant and thoughtful writer.” And 

the ordinary citizen, knowing that an author 

who is well spoken of by a respectable newspaper 

must be all right, reads me, as he reads 

Micah, with undisturbed edification from his 

own point of view. It is narrated that in the 

eighteen-seventies an old lady, a very devout 

Methodist, moved from Colchester to a house 

in the neighborhood of the City Road, in London, 

where, mistaking the Hall of Science for 

a chapel, she sat at the feet of Charles Bradlaugh 

for many years, entranced by his eloquence, 

without questioning his orthodoxy or 

moulting a feather of her faith. I fear I shall 

be defrauded of my just martyrdom in the 

same way. 

However, I am digressing, as a man with a 

grievance always does. And after all, the main 

thing in determining the artistic quality of a 

book is not the opinions it propagates, but the 

fact that the writer has opinions. The old lady 

from Colchester was right to sun her simple 

soul in the energetic radiance of Bradlaugh’s 

genuine beliefs and disbeliefs rather than in 

the chill of such mere painting of light and 

heat as elocution and convention can achieve. 

My contempt for belles lettres, and for ama-


teurs who become the heroes of the fanciers 

of literary virtuosity, is not founded on any illusion 

of mind as to the permanence of those 

forms of thought (call them opinions) by which 

I strive to communicate my bent to my fellows. 

To younger men they are already outmoded; 

for though they have no more lost their logic 

than an eighteenth century pastel has lost its 

drawing or its color, yet, like the pastel, they 

grow indefinably shabby, and will grow shabbier 

until they cease to count at all, when 

my books will either perish, or, if the world 

is still poor enough to want them, will have 

to stand, with Bunyan’s, by quite amorphous 

qualities of temper and energy. With this conviction 

I cannot be a bellettrist. No doubt I 

must recognize, as even the Ancient Mariner 

did, that I must tell my story entertainingly 

if I am to hold the wedding guest spellbound 

in spite of the siren sounds of the loud bassoon. 

But “for art’s sake” alone I would not 

face the toil of writing a single sentence. I 

know that there are men who, having nothing 

to say and nothing to write, are nevertheless 

so in love with oratory and with literature 

that they keep desperately repeating as much 

as they can understand of what others have 

said or written aforetime. I know that the 

leisurely tricks which their want of conviction 

leaves them free to play with the diluted and 

misapprehended message supply them with a 

pleasant parlor game which they call style. 

I can pity their dotage and even sympathize 

with their fancy. But a true original style is 

never achieved for its own sake: a man may


pay from a shilling to a guinea, according to 

his means, to see, hear, or read another man’s 

act of genius; but he will not pay with his 

whole life and soul to become a mere virtuoso 

in literature, exhibiting an accomplishment 

which will not even make money for him, like 

fiddle playing. Effectiveness of assertion is 

the Alpha and Omega of style. He who has 

nothing to assert has no style and can have 

none: he who has something to assert will go 

as far in power of style as its momentousness 

and his conviction will carry him. Disprove 

his assertion after it is made, yet its style remains. 

Darwin has no more destroyed the 

style of Job nor of Handel than Martin Luther 

destroyed the style of Giotto. All the assertions 

get disproved sooner or later; and so we 

find the world full of a magnificent debris of 

artistic fossils, with the matter-of-fact credibility 

gone clean out of them, but the form 

still splendid. And that is why the old masters 

play the deuce with our mere susceptibles. 

Your Royal Academician thinks he can 

get the style of Giotto without Giotto’s beliefs, 

and correct his perspective into the bargain. 

Your man of letters thinks he can get Bunyan’s 

or Shakespear’s style without Bunyan’s 

conviction or Shakespear’s apprehension, especially 

if he takes care not to split his infinitives. 

And so with your Doctors of Music, 

who, with their collections of discords duly 

prepared and resolved or retarded or anticipated 

in the manner of the great composers, 

think they can learn the art of Palestrina from 

Cherubim’s treatise. All this academic art is


far worse than the trade in sham antique furniture; 

for the man who sells me an oaken 

chest which he swears was made in the XIII 

century, though as a matter of fact he made it 

himself only yesterday, at least does not pretend 

that there are any modern ideas in it, 

whereas your academic copier of fossils offers 

them to you as the latest outpouring of the human 

spirit, and, worst of all, kidnaps young 

people as pupils and persuades them that his 

limitations are rules, his observances dexterities, 

his timidities good taste, and his emptinesses 

purities. And when he declares that 

art should not be didactic, all the people who 

have nothing to teach and all the people who 

don’t want to learn agree with him emphatically. 

I pride myself on not being one of these 

susceptible: If you study the electric light with 

which I supply you in that Bumbledonian public 

capacity of mine over which you make 

merry from time to time, you will find that 

your house contains a great quantity of highly 

susceptible copper wire which gorges itself 

with electricity and gives you no light whatever. 

But here and there occurs a scrap of intensely 

insusceptible, intensely resistant material; 

and that stubborn scrap grapples with 

the current and will not let it through until 

it has made itself useful to you as those two 

vital qualities of literature, light and heat. 

Now if I am to be no mere copper wire amateur 

but a luminous author, I must also be a 

most intensely refractory person, liable to go 

out and to go wrong at inconvenient moments,


and with incendiary possibilities. These are 

the faults of my qualities; and I assure you 

that I sometimes dislike myself so much that 

when some irritable reviewer chances at that 

moment to pitch into me with zest, I feel unspeakably 

relieved and obliged. But I never 

dream of reforming, knowing that I must take 

myself as I am and get what work I can out 

of myself. All this you will understand; for 

there is community of material between us: 

we are both critics of life as well as of art; 

and you have perhaps said to yourself when 

I have passed your windows, “There, but for 

the grace of God, go I.” An awful and chastening 

reflection, which shall be the closing 

cadence of this immoderately long letter from 

yours faithfully, 

G. BERNARD SHAW. 

WOKING, 1903

ACT I 

Roebuck Ramsden is in his study, opening 

the morning letters. The study, handsomely 

and solidly furnished, proclaims the man of 

means. Not a speck of dust is visible: it is clear 

that there are at least two housemaids and 

a parlormaid downstairs, and a housekeeper 

upstairs who does not let them spare elbowgrease. 

Even the top of Roebuck’s head is polished: 

on a sunshiny day he could heliograph 

his orders to distant camps by merely nodding. 

In no other respect, however, does he suggest 

the military man. It is in active civil life that 

men get his broad air of importance, his dignified 

expectation of deference, his determinate 

mouth disarmed and refined since the hour 

of his success by the withdrawal of opposition 

and the concession of comfort and precedence 

and power. He is more than a highly 

respectable man: he is marked out as a president 

of highly respectable men, a chairman 

among directors, an alderman among councillors, 

a mayor among aldermen. Four tufts 

of iron-grey hair, which will soon be as white 

as isinglass, and are in other respects not at 

all unlike it, grow in two symmetrical pairs 

45


above his ears and at the angles of his spreading 

jaws. He wears a black frock coat, a white 

waistcoat (it is bright spring weather), and 

trousers, neither black nor perceptibly blue, of 

one of those indefinitely mixed hues which the 

modern clothier has produced to harmonize 

with the religions of respectable men. He has 

not been out of doors yet to-day; so he still 

wears his slippers, his boots being ready for 

him on the hearthrug. Surmising that he has 

no valet, and seeing that he has no secretary 

with a shorthand notebook and a typewriter, 

one meditates on how little our great burgess’ 

domesticity has been disturbed by new fashions 

and methods, or by the enterprise of the 

railway and hotel companies which sell you a 

Saturday to Monday of life at Folkestone as 

a real gentleman for two guineas, first class 

fares both ways included. 

How old is Roebuck The question is important 

on the threshold of a drama of ideas; for 

under such circumstances everything depends 

on whether his adolescence belonged to the sixties 

or to the eighties. He was born, as a matter 

of fact, in 1839, and was a Unitarian and Free 

Trader from his boyhood, and an Evolutionist 

from the publication of the Origin of Species. 

Consequently he has always classed himself as 

an advanced thinker and fearlessly outspoken 

reformer. 

Sitting at his writing table, he has on his 

right the windows giving on Portland Place. 

Through these, as through a proscenium, the 

curious spectator may contemplate his profile 

as well as the blinds will permit. On his left

ACT I 47 

is the inner wall, with a stately bookcase, and 

the door not quite in the middle, but somewhat 

further from him. Against the wall opposite 

him are two busts on pillars: one, to 

his left, of John Bright; the other, to his right, 

of Mr. Herbert Spencer. Between them hang 

an engraved portrait of Richard Cobden; enlarged 

photographs of Martineau, Huxley, and 

George Eliot; autotypes of allegories by Mr. 

G. F. Watts (for Roebuck believed in the fine 

arts with all the earnestness of a man who 

does not understand them), and an impression 

of Dupont’s engraving of Delaroche’s Beaux 

Artes hemicycle, representing the great men of 

all ages. On the wall behind him, above the 

mantel-shelf, is a family portrait of impenetrable 

obscurity. 

A chair stands near the writing table for 

the convenience of business visitors. Two other 

chairs are against the wall between the busts. 

A parlormaid enters with a visitor’s card. 

Roebuck takes it, and nods, pleased. Evidently 

a welcome caller. 

RAMSDEN. Show him up. 

The parlormaid goes out and returns with 

the visitor. 

THE MAID. Mr. Robinson. 

Mr. Robinson is really an uncommonly nice 

looking young fellow. He must, one thinks, 

be the jeune premier; for it is not in reason 

to suppose that a second such attractive male 

figure should appear in one story. The slim 

shapely frame, the elegant suit of new mourning, 

the small head and regular features, the 

pretty little moustache, the frank clear eyes, the


wholesome bloom and the youthful complexion, 

the well brushed glossy hair, not curly, but 

of fine texture and good dark color, the arch of 

good nature in the eyebrows, the erect forehead 

and neatly pointed chin, all announce the man 

who will love and suffer later on. And that 

he will not do so without sympathy is guaranteed 

by an engaging sincerity and eager modest 

serviceableness which stamp him as a man 

of amiable nature. The moment he appears, 

Ramsden’s face expands into fatherly liking 

and welcome, an expression which drops into 

one of decorous grief as the young man approaches 

him with sorrow in his face as well as 

in his black clothes. Ramsden seems to know 

the nature of the bereavement. As the visitor 

advances silently to the writing table, the old 

man rises and shakes his hand across it without 

a word: a long, affectionate shake which 

tells the story of a recent sorrow common to 

both. 

RAMSDEN. [concluding the handshake 

and cheering up] Well, well, Octavius, it’s the 

common lot. We must all face it someday. Sit 

down. 

Octavius takes the visitor’s chair. Ramsden 

replaces himself in his own. 

OCTAVIUS. Yes: we must face it, Mr. 

Ramsden. But I owed him a great deal. He did 

everything for me that my father could have 

done if he had lived. 

RAMSDEN. He had no son of his own, you 

see. 

OCTAVIUS. But he had daughters; and 

yet he was as good to my sister as to me.

ACT I 49 

And his death was so sudden! I always intended 

to thank him—to let him know that I 

had not taken all his care of me as a matter 

of course, as any boy takes his father’s care. 

But I waited for an opportunity and now he is 

dead—dropped without a moment’s warning. 

He will never know what I felt. [He takes out 

his handkerchief and cries unaffectedly]. 

RAMSDEN. How do we know that, Octavius 

He may know it: we cannot tell. 

Come! Don’t grieve. [Octavius masters himself 

and puts up his handkerchief ]. That’s right. 

Now let me tell you something to console you. 

The last time I saw him—it was in this very 

room—he said to me: “Tavy is a generous lad 

and the soul of honor; and when I see how 

little consideration other men get from their 

sons, I realize how much better than a son he’s 

been to me.” There! Doesn’t that do you good 

OCTAVIUS. Mr. Ramsden: he used to say 

to me that he had met only one man in the 

world who was the soul of honor, and that was 

Roebuck Ramsden. 

RAMSDEN. Oh, that was his partiality: we 

were very old friends, you know. But there 

was something else he used to say about you. 

I wonder whether I ought to tell you or not! 

OCTAVIUS. You know best. 

RAMSDEN. It was something about his 

daughter. 

OCTAVIUS. [eagerly] About Ann! Oh, do 

tell me that, Mr. Ramsden. 

RAMSDEN. Well, he said he was glad, 

after all, you were not his son, because 

he thought that someday Annie and


you—[Octavius blushes vividly]. Well, 

perhaps I shouldn’t have told you. But he was 

in earnest. 

OCTAVIUS. Oh, if only I thought I had a 

chance! You know, Mr. Ramsden, I don’t care 

about money or about what people call position; 

and I can’t bring myself to take an interest 

in the business of struggling for them. 

Well, Ann has a most exquisite nature; but 

she is so accustomed to be in the thick of that 

sort of thing that she thinks a man’s character 

incomplete if he is not ambitious. She knows 

that if she married me she would have to reason 

herself out of being ashamed of me for not 

being a big success of some kind. 

RAMSDEN. [Getting up and planting himself 

with his back to the fireplace] Nonsense, 

my boy, nonsense! You’re too modest. What 

does she know about the real value of men 

at her age [More seriously] Besides, she’s 

a wonderfully dutiful girl. Her father’s wish 

would be sacred to her. Do you know that 

since she grew up to years of discretion, I don’t 

believe she has ever once given her own wish 

as a reason for doing anything or not doing it. 

It’s always “Father wishes me to,” or “Mother 

wouldn’t like it.” It’s really almost a fault in 

her. I have often told her she must learn to 

think for herself. 

OCTAVIUS. [shaking his head] I couldn’t 

ask her to marry me because her father 

wished it, Mr. Ramsden. 

RAMSDEN. Well, perhaps not. No: of 

course not. I see that. No: you certainly 

couldn’t. But when you win her on your own

ACT I 51 

merits, it will be a great happiness to her to 

fulfil her father’s desire as well as her own. 

Eh Come! you’ll ask her, won’t you 

OCTAVIUS. [with sad gaiety] At all events 

I promise you I shall never ask anyone else. 

RAMSDEN. Oh, you shan’t need to. She’ll 

accept you, my boy—although [here be suddenly 

becomes very serious indeed] you have 

one great drawback. 

OCTAVIUS. [anxiously] What drawback is 

that, Mr. Ramsden I should rather say which 

of my many drawbacks 

RAMSDEN. I’ll tell you, Octavius. [He 

takes from the table a book bound in red cloth]. 

I have in my hand a copy of the most infamous, 

the most scandalous, the most mischievous, 

the most blackguardly book that 

ever escaped burning at the hands of the common 

hangman. I have not read it: I would 

not soil my mind with such filth; but I have 

read what the papers say of it. The title is 

quite enough for me. [He reads it]. The Revolutionist’s 

Handbook and Pocket Companion 

by John Tanner, M.I.R.C., Member of the Idle 

Rich Class. 

OCTAVIUS. [smiling] But Jack— 

RAMSDEN. [testily] For goodness’ sake, 

don’t call him Jack under my roof [he throws 

the book violently down on the table, Then, 

somewhat relieved, he comes past the table to 

Octavius, and addresses him at close quarters 

with impressive gravity]. Now, Octavius, I 

know that my dead friend was right when he 

said you were a generous lad. I know that this 

man was your schoolfellow, and that you feel


bound to stand by him because there was a 

boyish friendship between you. But I ask you 

to consider the altered circumstances. You 

were treated as a son in my friend’s house. 

You lived there; and your friends could not 

be turned from the door. This Tanner was in 

and out there on your account almost from his 

childhood. He addresses Annie by her Christian 

name as freely as you do. Well, while her 

father was alive, that was her father’s business, 

not mine. This man Tanner was only a 

boy to him: his opinions were something to be 

laughed at, like a man’s hat on a child’s head. 

But now Tanner is a grown man and Annie 

a grown woman. And her father is gone. We 

don’t as yet know the exact terms of his will; 

but he often talked it over with me; and I have 

no more doubt than I have that you’re sitting 

there that the will appoints me Annie’s 

trustee and guardian. [Forcibly] Now I tell 

you, once for all, I can’t and I won’t have Annie 

placed in such a position that she must, 

out of regard for you, suffer the intimacy of 

this fellow Tanner. It’s not fair: it’s not right: 

it’s not kind. What are you going to do about 

it 

OCTAVIUS. But Ann herself has told Jack 

that whatever his opinions are, he will always 

be welcome because he knew her dear father. 

RAMSDEN. [out of patience] That girl’s 

mad about her duty to her parents. [He starts 

off like a goaded ox in the direction of John 

Bright, in whose expression there is no sympathy 

for him. As he speaks, he fumes down to 

Herbert Spencer, who receives him still more

ACT I 53 

coldly] Excuse me, Octavius; but there are 

limits to social toleration. You know that I am 

not a bigoted or prejudiced man. You know 

that I am plain Roebuck Ramsden when other 

men who have done less have got handles to 

their names, because I have stood for equality 

and liberty of conscience while they were 

truckling to the Church and to the aristocracy. 

Whitefield and I lost chance after chance 

through our advanced opinions. But I draw 

the line at Anarchism and Free Love and that 

sort of thing. If I am to be Annie’s guardian, 

she will have to learn that she has a duty to 

me. I won’t have it: I will not have it. She 

must forbid John Tanner the house; and so 

must you. 

The parlormaid returns. 

OCTAVIUS. But— 

RAMSDEN. [calling his attention to the 

servant] Ssh! Well 

THE MAID. Mr. Tanner wishes to see you, 

sir. 

RAMSDEN. Mr. Tanner! 

OCTAVIUS. Jack! 

RAMSDEN. How dare Mr. Tanner call on 

me! Say I cannot see him. 

OCTAVIUS. [hurt] I am sorry you are turning 

my friend from your door like that. 

THE MAID. [calmly] He’s not at the door, 

sir. He’s upstairs in the drawing-room with 

Miss Ramsden. He came with Mrs. Whitefield 

and Miss Ann and Miss Robinson, sir. 

Ramsden’s feelings are beyond words. 

OCTAVIUS. [grinning] That’s very like 

Jack, Mr. Ramsden. You must see him, even if


it’s only to turn him out. 

RAMSDEN. [hammering out his words 

with suppressed fury] Go upstairs and ask Mr. 

Tanner to be good enough to step down here. 

[The parlormaid goes out; and Ramsden returns 

to the fireplace, as to a fortified position]. 

I must say that of all the confounded pieces 

of impertinence—well, if these are Anarchist 

manners I hope you like them. And Annie 

with him! Annie! A— [he chokes]. 

OCTAVIUS. Yes: that’s what surprises me. 

He’s so desperately afraid of Ann. There must 

be something the matter. 

Mr. John Tanner suddenly opens the door 

and enters. He is too young to be described 

simply as a big man with a beard. But it is 

already plain that middle life will find him in 

that category. He has still some of the slimness 

of youth; but youthfulness is not the effect 

he aims at: his frock coat would befit a 

prime minister; and a certain high chested 

carriage of the shoulders, a lofty pose of the 

head, and the Olympian majesty with which 

a mane, or rather a huge wisp, of hazel colored 

hair is thrown back from an imposing 

brow, suggest Jupiter rather than Apollo. He 

is prodigiously fluent of speech, restless, excitable 

(mark the snorting nostril and the restless 

blue eye, just the thirty-secondth of an inch 

too wide open), possibly a little mad. He is 

carefully dressed, not from the vanity that cannot 

resist finery, but from a sense of the importance 

of everything he does which leads him to 

make as much of paying a call as other men 

do of getting married or laying a foundation

ACT I 55 

stone. A sensitive, susceptible, exaggerative, 

earnest man: a megalomaniac, who would be 

lost without a sense of humor. 

Just at present the sense of humor is in 

abeyance. To say that he is excited is nothing: 

all his moods are phases of excitement. He is 

now in the panic-stricken phase; and he walks 

straight up to Ramsden as if with the fixed intention 

of shooting him on his own hearthrug. 

But what he pulls from his breast pocket is 

not a pistol, but a foolscap document which he 

thrusts under the indignant nose of Ramsden 

as he exclaims—- 

TANNER. Ramsden: do you know what 

that is 

RAMSDEN. [loftily] No, Sir. 

TANNER. It’s a copy of Whitefield’s will. 

Ann got it this morning. 

RAMSDEN. When you say Ann, you mean, 

I presume, Miss Whitefield. 

TANNER. I mean our Ann, your Ann, 

Tavy’s Ann, and now, Heaven help me, my 

Ann! 

OCTAVIUS. [rising, very pale] What do you 

mean 

TANNER. Mean! [He holds up the will]. 

Do you know who is appointed Ann’s guardian 

by this will 

RAMSDEN. [coolly] I believe I am. 

TANNER. You! You and I, man. I! I!! I!!! 

Both of us! [He flings the will down on the 

writing table]. 

RAMSDEN. You! Impossible. 

TANNER. It’s only too hideously true. [He 

throws himself into Octavius’s chair]. Rams-


den: get me out of it somehow. You don’t know 

Ann as well as I do. She’ll commit every crime 

a respectable woman can; and she’ll justify every 

one of them by saying that it was the wish 

of her guardians. She’ll put everything on us; 

and we shall have no more control over her 

than a couple of mice over a cat. 

OCTAVIUS. Jack: I wish you wouldn’t talk 

like that about Ann. 

TANNER. This chap’s in love with her: 

that’s another complication. Well, she’ll either 

jilt him and say I didn’t approve of him, or 

marry him and say you ordered her to. I tell 

you, this is the most staggering blow that has 

ever fallen on a man of my age and temperament. 

RAMSDEN. Let me see that will, sir. [He 

goes to the writing table and picks it up]. I 

cannot believe that my old friend Whitefield 

would have shown such a want of confidence 

in me as to associate me with— [His countenance 

falls as he reads]. 

TANNER. It’s all my own doing: that’s the 

horrible irony of it. He told me one day that 

you were to be Ann’s guardian; and like a fool 

I began arguing with him about the folly of 

leaving a young woman under the control of 

an old man with obsolete ideas. 

RAMSDEN. [stupended] My ideas obsolete!!!!! 

TANNER. Totally. I had just finished an 

essay called Down with Government by the 

Greyhaired; and I was full of arguments and 

illustrations. I said the proper thing was 

to combine the experience of an old hand

ACT I 57 

with the vitality of a young one. Hang me 

if he didn’t take me at my word and alter 

his will—it’s dated only a fortnight after 

that conversation—appointing me as joint 

guardian with you! 

RAMSDEN. [pale and determined] I shall 

refuse to act. 

TANNER. What’s the good of that I’ve 

been refusing all the way from Richmond; but 

Ann keeps on saying that of course she’s only 

an orphan; and that she can’t expect the people 

who were glad to come to the house in her 

father’s time to trouble much about her now. 

That’s the latest game. An orphan! It’s like 

hearing an ironclad talk about being at the 

mercy of the winds and waves. 

OCTAVIUS. This is not fair, Jack. She is 

an orphan. And you ought to stand by her. 

TANNER. Stand by her! What danger is 

she in She has the law on her side; she has 

popular sentiment on her side; she has plenty 

of money and no conscience. All she wants 

with me is to load up all her moral responsibilities 

on me, and do as she likes at the expense 

of my character. I can’t control her; and she 

can compromise me as much as she likes. I 

might as well be her husband. 

RAMSDEN. You can refuse to accept the 

guardianship. I shall certainly refuse to hold 

it jointly with you. 

TANNER. Yes; and what will she say to 

that what does she say to it Just that her 

father’s wishes are sacred to her, and that she 

shall always look up to me as her guardian 

whether I care to face the responsibility or


not. Refuse! You might as well refuse to accept 

the embraces of a boa constrictor when 

once it gets round your neck. 

OCTAVIUS. This sort of talk is not kind to 

me, Jack. 

TANNER. [rising and going to Octavius to 

console him, but still lamenting] If he wanted 

a young guardian, why didn’t he appoint 

Tavy 

RAMSDEN. Ah! why indeed 

OCTAVIUS. I will tell you. He sounded 

me about it; but I refused the trust because 

I loved her. I had no right to let myself be 

forced on her as a guardian by her father. He 

spoke to her about it; and she said I was right. 

You know I love her, Mr. Ramsden; and Jack 

knows it too. If Jack loved a woman, I would 

not compare her to a boa constrictor in his 

presence, however much I might dislike her 

[he sits down between the busts and turns his 

face to the wall]. 

RAMSDEN. I do not believe that Whitefield 

was in his right senses when he made 

that will. You have admitted that he made it 

under your influence. 

TANNER. You ought to be pretty well 

obliged to me for my influence. He leaves you 

two thousand five hundred for your trouble. 

He leaves Tavy a dowry for his sister and five 

thousand for himself. 

OCTAVIUS. [his tears flowing afresh] Oh, 

I can’t take it. He was too good to us. 

TANNER. You won’t get it, my boy, if 

Ramsden upsets the will. 

RAMSDEN. Ha! I see. You have got me in

ACT I 59 

a cleft stick. 

TANNER. He leaves me nothing but the 

charge of Ann’s morals, on the ground that I 

have already more money than is good for me. 

That shows that he had his wits about him, 

doesn’t it 

RAMSDEN. [grimly] I admit that. 

OCTAVIUS. [rising and coming from his 

refuge by the wall] Mr. Ramsden: I think you 

are prejudiced against Jack. He is a man of 

honor, and incapable of abusing— 

TANNER. Don’t, Tavy: you’ll make me ill. 

I am not a man of honor: I am a man struck 

down by a dead hand. Tavy: you must marry 

her after all and take her off my hands. And I 

had set my heart on saving you from her! 

OCTAVIUS. Oh, Jack, you talk of saving 

me from my highest happiness. 

TANNER. Yes, a lifetime of happiness. If it 

were only the first half hour’s happiness, Tavy, 

I would buy it for you with my last penny. But 

a lifetime of happiness! No man alive could 

bear it: it would be hell on earth. 

RAMSDEN. [violently] Stuff, sir. Talk 

sense; or else go and waste someone else’s 

time: I have something better to do than listen 

to your fooleries [he positively kicks his way to 

his table and resumes his seat]. 

TANNER. You hear him, Tavy! Not an idea 

in his head later than eighteen-sixty. We can’t 

leave Ann with no other guardian to turn to. 

RAMSDEN. I am proud of your contempt 

for my character and opinions, sir. Your own 

are set forth in that book, I believe. 

TANNER. [eagerly going to the table]


What! You’ve got my book! What do you think 

of it 

RAMSDEN. Do you suppose I would read 

such a book, sir 

TANNER. Then why did you buy it 

RAMSDEN. I did not buy it, sir. It has 

been sent me by some foolish lady who seems 

to admire your views. I was about to dispose 

of it when Octavius interrupted me. I shall 

do so now, with your permission. [He throws 

the book into the waste paper basket with such 

vehemence that Tanner recoils under the impression 

that it is being thrown at his head]. 

TANNER. You have no more manners than 

I have myself. However, that saves ceremony 

between us. [He sits down again]. What do 

you intend to do about this will 

OCTAVIUS. May I make a suggestion 

RAMSDEN. Certainly, Octavius. 

OCTAVIUS. Aren’t we forgetting that Ann 

herself may have some wishes in this matter 

RAMSDEN. I quite intend that Annie’s 

wishes shall be consulted in every reasonable 

way. But she is only a woman, and a young 

and inexperienced woman at that. 

TANNER. Ramsden: I begin to pity you. 

RAMSDEN. [hotly] I don’t want to know 

how you feel towards me, Mr. Tanner. 

TANNER. Ann will do just exactly what 

she likes. And what’s more, she’ll force us to 

advise her to do it; and she’ll put the blame on 

us if it turns out badly. So, as Tavy is longing 

to see her— 

OCTAVIUS. [shyly] I am not, Jack. 

TANNER. You lie, Tavy: you are. So let’s

ACT I 61 

have her down from the drawing-room and 

ask her what she intends us to do. Off with 

you, Tavy, and fetch her. [Tavy turns to go]. 

And don’t be long for the strained relations 

between myself and Ramsden will make the 

interval rather painful [Ramsden compresses 

his lips, but says nothing—]. 

OCTAVIUS. Never mind him, Mr. Ramsden. 

He’s not serious. [He goes out]. 

RAMSDEN [very deliberately] Mr. Tanner: 

you are the most impudent person I have ever 

met. 

TANNER. [seriously] I know it, Ramsden. 

Yet even I cannot wholly conquer shame. We 

live in an atmosphere of shame. We are 

ashamed of everything that is real about us; 

ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our 

incomes, of our accents, of our opinions, of 

our experience, just as we are ashamed of our 

naked skins. Good Lord, my dear Ramsden, 

we are ashamed to walk, ashamed to ride in 

an omnibus, ashamed to hire a hansom instead 

of keeping a carriage, ashamed of keeping 

one horse instead of two and a groomgardener 

instead of a coachman and footman. 

The more things a man is ashamed of, the 

more respectable he is. Why, you’re ashamed 

to buy my book, ashamed to read it: the only 

thing you’re not ashamed of is to judge me for 

it without having read it; and even that only 

means that you’re ashamed to have heterodox 

opinions. Look at the effect I produce because 

my fairy godmother withheld from me this gift 

of shame. I have every possible virtue that a 

man can have except—


RAMSDEN. I am glad you think so well of 

yourself. 

TANNER. All you mean by that is that you 

think I ought to be ashamed of talking about 

my virtues. You don’t mean that I haven’t 

got them: you know perfectly well that I am 

as sober and honest a citizen as yourself, as 

truthful personally, and much more truthful 

politically and morally. 

RAMSDEN. [touched on his most sensitive 

point] I deny that. I will not allow you or any 

man to treat me as if I were a mere member 

of the British public. I detest its prejudices; I 

scorn its narrowness; I demand the right to 

think for myself. You pose as an advanced 

man. Let me tell you that I was an advanced 

man before you were born. 

TANNER. I knew it was a long time ago. 

RAMSDEN. I am as advanced as ever I 

was. I defy you to prove that I have ever 

hauled down the flag. I am more advanced 

than ever I was. I grow more advanced every 

day. 

TANNER. More advanced in years, Polonius. 

RAMSDEN. Polonius! So you are Hamlet, 

I suppose. 

TANNER. No: I am only the most impudent 

person you’ve ever met. That’s your notion 

of a thoroughly bad character. When you 

want to give me a piece of your mind, you ask 

yourself, as a just and upright man, what is 

the worst you can fairly say of me. Thief, liar, 

forger, adulterer, perjurer, glutton, drunkard 

Not one of these names fit me. You have to

ACT I 63 

fall back on my deficiency in shame. Well, I 

admit it. I even congratulate myself; for if I 

were ashamed of my real self, I should cut as 

stupid a figure as any of the rest of you. Cultivate 

a little impudence, Ramsden; and you 

will become quite a remarkable man. 

RAMSDEN. I have no— 

TANNER. You have no desire for that sort 

of notoriety. Bless you, I knew that answer 

would come as well as I know that a box of 

matches will come out of an automatic machine 

when I put a penny in the slot: you 

would be ashamed to say anything else. 

The crushing retort for which Ramsden has 

been visibly collecting his forces is lost for ever; 

for at this point Octavius returns with Miss 

Ann Whitefield and her mother; and Ramsden 

springs up and hurries to the door to receive 

them. Whether Ann is good-looking or 

not depends upon your taste; also and perhaps 

chiefly on your age and sex. To Octavius she 

is an enchantingly beautiful woman, in whose 

presence the world becomes transfigured, and 

the puny limits of individual consciousness 

are suddenly made infinite by a mystic memory 

of the whole life of the race to its beginnings 

in the east, or even back to the paradise from 

which it fell. She is to him the reality of romance, 

the leaner good sense of nonsense, the 

unveiling of his eyes, the freeing of his soul, 

the abolition of time, place and circumstance, 

the etherealization of his blood into rapturous 

rivers of the very water of life itself, the revelation 

of all the mysteries and the sanctification 

of all the dogmas. To her mother she


is, to put it as moderately as possible, nothing 

whatever of the kind. Not that Octavius’s 

admiration is in any way ridiculous or discreditable. 

Ann is a well formed creature, as 

far as that goes; and she is perfectly ladylike, 

graceful, and comely, with ensnaring eyes and 

hair. Besides, instead of making herself an eyesore, 

like her mother, she has devised a mourning 

costume of black and violet silk which does 

honor to her late father and reveals the family 

tradition of brave unconventionality by which 

Ramsden sets such store. 

But all this is beside the point as an explanation 

of Ann’s charm. Turn up her nose, give 

a cast to her eye, replace her black and violet 

confection by the apron and feathers of a flower 

girl, strike all the aitches out of her speech, and 

Ann would still make men dream. Vitality is 

as common as humanity; but, like humanity, 

it sometimes rises to genius; and Ann is one 

of the vital geniuses. Not at all, if you please, 

an oversexed person: that is a vital defect, not 

a true excess. She is a perfectly respectable, 

perfectly self-controlled woman, and looks it; 

though her pose is fashionably frank and impulsive. 

She inspires confidence as a person 

who will do nothing she does not mean to do; 

also some fear, perhaps, as a woman who will 

probably do everything she means to do without 

taking more account of other people than 

may be necessary and what she calls right. In 

short, what the weaker of her own sex sometimes 

call a cat. 

Nothing can be more decorous than her entry 

and her reception by Ramsden, whom she

ACT I 65 

kisses. The late Mr. Whitefield would be gratified 

almost to impatience by the long faces of 

the men (except Tanner, who is fidgety), the 

silent handgrasps, the sympathetic placing of 

chairs, the sniffing of the widow, and the liquid 

eye of the daughter, whose heart, apparently, 

will not let her control her tongue to 

speech. Ramsden and Octavius take the two 

chairs from the wall, and place them for the 

two ladies; but Ann comes to Tanner and takes 

his chair, which he offers with a brusque gesture, 

subsequently relieving his irritation by 

sitting down on the corner of the writing table 

with studied indecorum. Octavius gives 

Mrs. Whitefield a chair next Ann, and himself 

takes the vacant one which Ramsden has 

placed under the nose of the effigy of Mr. Herbert 

Spencer. 

Mrs. Whitefield, by the way, is a little 

woman, whose faded flaxen hair looks like 

straw on an egg. She has an expression of 

muddled shrewdness, a squeak of protest in 

her voice, and an odd air of continually elbowing 

away some larger person who is crushing 

her into a corner. One guesses her as one 

of those women who are conscious of being 

treated as silly and negligible, and who, without 

having strength enough to assert themselves 

effectually, at any rate never submit to 

their fate. There is a touch of chivalry in 

Octavius’s scrupulous attention to her, even 

whilst his whole soul is absorbed by Ann. 

Ramsden goes solemnly back to his magisterial 

seat at the writing table, ignoring Tanner, 

and opens the proceedings.


RAMSDEN. I am sorry, Annie, to force 

business on you at a sad time like the present. 

But your poor dear father’s will has raised a 

very serious question. You have read it, I believe 

[Ann assents with a nod and a catch of 

her breath, too much affected to speak]. I must 

say I am surprised to find Mr. Tanner named 

as joint guardian and trustee with myself of 

you and Rhoda. [A pause. They all look portentous; 

but they have nothing to say. Ramsden, 

a little ruffled by the lack of any response, 

continues] I don’t know that I can consent to 

act under such conditions. Mr. Tanner has, I 

understand, some objection also; but I do not 

profess to understand its nature: he will no 

doubt speak for himself. But we are agreed 

that we can decide nothing until we know 

your views. I am afraid I shall have to ask 

you to choose between my sole guardianship 

and that of Mr. Tanner; for I fear it is impossible 

for us to undertake a joint arrangement. 

ANN. [in a low musical voice] Mamma— 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [hastily] Now, Ann, I 

do beg you not to put it on me. I have no opinion 

on the subject; and if I had, it would probably 

not be attended to. I am quite with whatever 

you three think best. 

Tanner turns his head and looks fixedly at 

Ramsden, who angrily refuses to receive this 

mute communication. 

ANN. [resuming in the same gentle voice, 

ignoring her mother’s bad taste] Mamma 

knows that she is not strong enough to bear 

the whole responsibility for me and Rhoda 

without some help and advice. Rhoda must

ACT I 67 

have a guardian; and though I am older, I 

do not think any young unmarried woman 

should be left quite to her own guidance. I 

hope you agree with me, Granny 

TANNER. [starting] Granny! Do you intend 

to call your guardians Granny 

ANN. Don’t be foolish, Jack. Mr. Ramsden 

has always been Grandpapa Roebuck to me: I 

am Granny’s Annie; and he is Annie’s Granny. 

I christened him so when I first learned to 

speak. 

RAMSDEN. [sarcastically] I hope you are 

satisfied, Mr. Tanner. Go on, Annie: I quite 

agree with you. 

ANN. Well, if I am to have a guardian, can 

I set aside anybody whom my dear father appointed 

for me 

RAMSDEN. [biting his lip] You approve of 

your father’s choice, then 

ANN. It is not for me to approve or disapprove. 

I accept it. My father loved me and 

knew best what was good for me. 

RAMSDEN. Of course I understand your 

feeling, Annie. It is what I should have expected 

of you; and it does you credit. But it 

does not settle the question so completely as 

you think. Let me put a case to you. Suppose 

you were to discover that I had been 

guilty of some disgraceful action—that I was 

not the man your poor dear father took me for. 

Would you still consider it right that I should 

be Rhoda’s guardian 

ANN. I can’t imagine you doing anything 

disgraceful, Granny. 

TANNER. [to Ramsden] You haven’t done


anything of the sort, have you 

RAMSDEN. [indignantly] No sir. 

MRS. WHITEFIELD. [placidly] Well, then, 

why suppose it 

ANN. You see, Granny, Mamma would not 

like me to suppose it. 

RAMSDEN. [much perplexed] You are both 

so full of natural and affectionate feeling in 

these family matters that it is very hard to 

put the situation fairly before you. 

TANNER. Besides, my friend, you are not 

putting the situation fairly before them. 

RAMSDEN. [sulkily] Put it yourself, then. 

TANNER. I will. Ann: Ramsden thinks I 

am not fit be your guardian; and I quite agree 

with him. He considers that if your father 

had read my book, he wouldn’t have appointed 

me. That book is the disgraceful action he has 

been talking about. He thinks it’s your duty 

for Rhoda’s sake to ask him to act alone and to 

make me withdraw. Say the word and I will. 

ANN. But I haven’t read your book, Jack. 

TANNER. [diving at the waste-paper basket 

and fishing the book out for her] Then read 

it at once and decide. 

RAMSDEN. If I am to be your guardian, I 

positively forbid you to read that book, Annie. 

[He smites the table with his fist and rises]. 

ANN. Of course, if you don’t wish it. [She 

puts the book on the table]. 

TANNER. If one guardian is to forbid you 

to read the other guardian’s book, how are we 

to settle it Suppose I order you to read it! 

What about your duty to me 

ANN. [gently] I am sure you would never

ACT I 69 

purposely force me into a painful dilemma, 

Jack. 

RAMSDEN. [irritably] Yes, yes, Annie: this 

is all very well, and, as I said, quite natural 

and becoming. But you must make a choice 

one way or the other. We are as much in a 

dilemma as you. 

ANN. I feel that I am too young, too inexperienced, 

to decide. My father’s wishes are 

sacred to me. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. If you two men won’t 

carry them out I must say it is rather hard 

that you should put the responsibility on Ann. 

It seems to me that people are always putting 

things on other people in this world. 

RAMSDEN. I am sorry you take it that 

way. 

ANN. [touchingly] Do you refuse to accept 

me as your ward, Granny 

RAMSDEN. No: I never said that. I greatly 

object to act with Mr. Tanner: that’s all. 

MRS. WHITEFIELD. Why What’s the 

matter with poor Jack 

TANNER. My views are too advanced for 

him. 

RAMSDEN. [indignantly] They are not. I 

deny it. 

ANN. Of course not. What nonsense! Nobody 

is more advanced than Granny. I am 

sure it is Jack himself who has made all the 

difficulty. Come, Jack! Be kind to me in my 

sorrow. You don’t refuse to accept me as your 

ward, do you 

TANNER. [gloomily] No. I let myself in 

for it; so I suppose I must face it. [He turns


away to the bookcase, and stands there, moodily 

studying the titles of the volumes]. 

ANN. [rising and expanding with subdued 

but gushing delight] Then we are all agreed; 

and my dear father’s will is to be carried out. 

You don’t know what a joy that is to me and 

to my mother! [She goes to Ramsden and 

presses both his hands, saying] And I shall 

have my dear Granny to help and advise me. 

[She casts a glance at Tanner over her shoulder]. 

And Jack the Giant Killer. [She goes past 

her mother to Octavius]. And Jack’s inseparable 

friend Ricky-ticky-tavy [he blushes and 

looks inexpressibly foolish]. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [rising and shaking 

her widow’s weeds straight] Now that you are 

Ann’s guardian, Mr. Ramsden, I wish you 

would speak to her about her habit of giving 

people nicknames. They can’t be expected to 

like it. [She moves towards the door]. 

ANN. How can you say such a thing, 

Mamma! [Glowing with affectionate remorse] 

Oh, I wonder can you be right! Have I been 

inconsiderate [She turns to Octavius, who is 

sitting astride his chair with his elbows on the 

back of it. Putting her hand on his forehead 

the turns his face up suddenly]. Do you want 

to be treated like a grown up man Must I call 

you Mr. Robinson in future 

OCTAVIUS. [earnestly] Oh please call me 

Ricky-ticky—tavy, “Mr. Robinson” would hurt 

me cruelly. [She laughs and pats his cheek 

with then comes back to Ramsden]. You know 

I’m beginning to think that Granny is rather 

a piece of impertinence. But I never dreamt of

ACT I 71 

its hurting you. 

RAMSDEN. [breezily, as he pats her affectionately 

on the back] My dear Annie, nonsense. 

I insist on Granny. I won’t answer to 

any other name than Annie’s Granny. 

ANN. [gratefully] You all spoil me, except 

Jack. 

TANNER. [over his shoulder, from the 

bookcase] I think you ought to call me Mr. Tanner. 

ANN. [gently] No you don’t, Jack. That’s 

like the things you say on purpose to shock 

people: those who know you pay no attention 

to them. But, if you like, I’ll call you after your 

famous ancestor Don Juan. 

RAMSDEN. Don Juan! 

ANN. [innocently] Oh, is there any harm in 

it I didn’t know. Then I certainly won’t call 

you that. May I call you Jack until I can think 

of something else 

TANKER. Oh, for Heaven’s sake don’t try 

to invent anything worse. I capitulate. I consent 

to Jack. I embrace Jack. Here endeth my 

first and last attempt to assert my authority. 

ANN. You see, Mamma, they all really like 

to have pet names. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. Well, I think you 

might at least drop them until we are out of 

mourning. 

ANN. [reproachfully, stricken to the soul] 

Oh, how could you remind me, mother [She 

hastily leaves the room to conceal her emotion]. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. Of course. My fault 

as usual! [She follows Ann]. 

TANNER. [coming from the bockcase]


Ramsden: we’re beaten—smashed—nonentitized, 

like her mother. 

RAMSDEN. Stuff, Sir. [He follows Mrs. 

Whitefield out of the room]. 

TANNER. [left alone with Octavius, stares 

whimsically at him] Tavy: do you want to 

count for something in the world 

OCTAVIUS. I want to count for something 

as a poet: I want to write a great play. 

TANNER. With Ann as the heroine 

OCTAVIUS. Yes: I confess it. 

TANNER. Take care, Tavy. The play with 

Ann as the heroine is all right; but if you’re 

not very careful, by Heaven she’ll marry you. 

OCTAVIUS. [sighing] No such luck, Jack! 

TANNER. Why, man, your head is in 

the lioness’s mouth: you are half swallowed 

already—in three bites—Bite One, Ricky; Bite 

Two, Ticky; Bite Three, Tavy; and down you 

go. 

OCTAVIUS. She is the same to everybody, 

Jack: you know her ways. 

TANNER. Yes: she breaks everybody’s 

back with the stroke of her paw; but the question 

is, which of us will she eat My own opinion 

is that she means to eat you. 

OCTAVIUS. [rising, pettishly] It’s horrible 

to talk like that about her when she is upstairs 

crying for her father. But I do so want 

her to eat me that I can bear your brutalities 

because they give me hope. 

TANNER. Tavy; that’s the devilish side 

of a woman’s fascination: she makes you will 

your own destruction.

ACT I 73 

OCTAVIUS. But it’s not destruction: it’s 

fulfilment. 

TANNER. Yes, of her purpose; and that 

purpose is neither her happiness nor yours, 

but Nature’s. Vitality in a woman is a blind 

fury of creation. She sacrifices herself to it: do 

you think she will hesitate to sacrifice you 

OCTAVIUS. Why, it is just because she is 

self-sacrificing that she will not sacrifice those 

she loves. 

TANNER. That is the profoundest of mistakes, 

Tavy. It is the self-sacrificing women 

that sacrifice others most recklessly. Because 

they are unselfish, they are kind in little 

things. Because they have a purpose which is 

not their own purpose, but that of the whole 

universe, a man is nothing to them but an instrument 

of that purpose. 

OCTAVIUS. Don’t be ungenerous, Jack. 

They take the tenderest care of us. 

TANNER. Yes, as a soldier takes care of his 

rifle or a musician of his violin. But do they 

allow us any purpose or freedom of our own 

Will they lend us to one another Can the 

strongest man escape from them when once 

he is appropriated They tremble when we 

are in danger, and weep when we die; but the 

tears are not for us, but for a father wasted, 

a son’s breeding thrown away. They accuse 

us of treating them as a mere means to our 

pleasure; but how can so feeble and transient 

a folly as a man’s selfish pleasure enslave a 

woman as the whole purpose of Nature embodied 

in a woman can enslave a man 

OCTAVIUS. What matter, if the slavery


makes us happy 

TANNER. No matter at all if you have no 

purpose of your own, and are, like most men, 

a mere breadwinner. But you, Tavy, are an 

artist: that is, you have a purpose as absorbing 

and as unscrupulous as a woman’s purpose. 

OCTAVIUS. Not unscrupulous. 

TANNER. Quite unscrupulous. The true 

artist will let his wife starve, his children go 

barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at 

seventy, sooner than work at anything but 

his art. To women he is half vivisector, half 

vampire. He gets into intimate relations with 

them to study them, to strip the mask of convention 

from them, to surprise their inmost 

secrets, knowing that they have the power to 

rouse his deepest creative energies, to rescue 

him from his cold reason, to make him see visions 

and dream dreams, to inspire him, as 

he calls it. He persuades women that they 

may do this for their own purpose whilst he 

really means them to do it for his. He steals 

the mother’s milk and blackens it to make 

printer’s ink to scoff at her and glorify ideal 

women with. He pretends to spare her the 

pangs of childbearing so that he may have 

for himself the tenderness and fostering that 

belong of right to her children. Since marriage 

began, the great artist has been known 

as a bad husband. But he is worse: he is a 

child-robber, a bloodsucker, a hypocrite and a 

cheat. Perish the race and wither a thousand 

women if only the sacrifice of them enable him 

to act Hamlet better, to paint a finer picture,

ACT I 75 

to write a deeper poem, a greater play, a profounder 

philosophy! For mark you, Tavy, the 

artist’s work is to show us ourselves as we 

really are. Our minds are nothing but this 

knowledge of ourselves; and he who adds a jot 

to such knowledge creates new mind as surely 

as any woman creates new men. In the rage of 

that creation he is as ruthless as the woman, 

as dangerous to her as she to him, and as 

horribly fascinating. Of all human struggles 

there is none so treacherous and remorseless 

as the struggle between the artist man and 

the mother woman. Which shall use up the 

other that is the issue between them. And it 

is all the deadlier because, in your romanticist 

cant, they love one another. 

OCTAVIUS. Even if it were so—and I don’t 

admit it for a moment—it is out of the deadliest 

struggles that we get the noblest characters. 

TANNER. Remember that the next time 

you meet a grizzly bear or a Bengal tiger, Tavy. 

OCTAVIUS. I meant where there is love, 

Jack. 

TANNER. Oh, the tiger will love you. 

There is no love sincerer than the love of food. 

I think Ann loves you that way: she patted 

your cheek as if it were a nicely underdone 

chop. 

OCTAVIUS. You know, Jack, I should have 

to run away from you if I did not make it a 

fixed rule not to mind anything you say. You 

come out with perfectly revolting things sometimes. 

Ramsden returns, followed by Ann. They


come in quickly, with their former leisurely air 

of decorous grief changed to one of genuine 

concern, and, on Ramsden’s part, of worry. He 

comes between the two men, intending to address 

Octavius, but pulls himself up abruptly 

as he sees Tanner. 

RAMSDEN. I hardly expected to find you 

still here, Mr. Tanner. 

TANNER. Am I in the way Good morning, 

fellow guardian [he goes towards the door]. 

ANN. Stop, Jack. Granny: he must know, 

sooner or later. 

RAMSDEN. Octavius: I have a very serious 

piece of news for you. It is of the most private 

and delicate nature—of the most painful 

nature too, I am sorry to say. Do you wish Mr. 

Tanner to be present whilst I explain 

OCTAVIUS. [turning pale] I have no secrets 

from Jack. 

RAMSDEN. Before you decide that finally, 

let me say that the news concerns your sister, 

and that it is terrible news. 

OCTAVIUS. Violet! What has happened 

Is she—dead 

RAMSDEN. I am not sure that it is not 

even worse than that. 

OCTAVIUS. Is she badly hurt Has there 

been an accident 

RAMSDEN. No: nothing of that sort. 

TANNER. Ann: will you have the common 

humanity to tell us what the matter is 

ANN. [half whispering] I can’t. Violet has 

done something dreadful. We shall have to get 

her away somewhere. [She flutters to the writing 

table and sits in Ramsden’s chair, leaving

ACT I 77 

the three men to fight it out between them]. 

OCTAVIUS. [enlightened] Is that what you 

meant, Mr. Ramsden 

RAMSDEN. Yes. [Octavius sinks upon a 

chair, crushed]. I am afraid there is no doubt 

that Violet did not really go to Eastbourne 

three weeks ago when we thought she was 

with the Parry Whitefields. And she called 

on a strange doctor yesterday with a wedding 

ring on her finger. Mrs. Parry Whitefield met 

her there by chance; and so the whole thing 

came out. 

OCTAVIUS. [rising with his fists clenched] 

Who is the scoundrel 

ANN. She won’t tell us. 

OCTAVIUS. [collapsing upon his chair 

again] What a frightful thing! 

TANNER. [with angry sarcasm] Dreadful. 

Appalling. Worse than death, as Ramsden 

says. [He comes to Octavius]. What would you 

not give, Tavy, to turn it into a railway accident, 

with all her bones broken or something 

equally respectable and deserving of sympathy 

OCTAVIUS. Don’t be brutal, Jack. 

TANNER. Brutal! Good Heavens, man, 

what are you crying for Here is a woman 

whom we all supposed to be making bad water 

color sketches, practising Grieg and Brahms, 

gadding about to concerts and parties, wasting 

her life and her money. We suddenly learn 

that she has turned from these sillinesses 

to the fulfilment of her highest purpose and 

greatest function—to increase, multiply and 

replenish the earth. And instead of admiring


her courage and rejoicing in her instinct; instead 

of crowning the completed womanhood 

and raising the triumphal strain of “Unto us 

a child is born: unto us a son is given,” here 

you are—you who have been as merry as Brigs 

in your mourning for the dead—all pulling 

long faces and looking as ashamed and disgraced 

as if the girl had committed the vilest 

of crimes. 

RAMSDEN. [roaring with rage] I will not 

have these abominations uttered in my house 

[he smites the writing table with his fist]. 

TANNER. Look here: if you insult me 

again I’ll take you at your word and leave your 

house. Ann: where is Violet now 

ANN. Why Are you going to her 

TANNER. Of course I am going to her. She 

wants help; she wants money; she wants respect 

and congratulation. She wants every 

chance for her child. She does not seem likely 

to get it from you: she shall from me. Where 

is she 

ANN. Don’t be so headstrong, Jack. She’s 

upstairs. 

TANNER. What! Under Ramsden’s sacred 

roof! Go and do your miserable duty, Ramsden. 

Hunt her out into the street. Cleanse 

your threshold from her contamination. Vindicate 

the purity of your English home. I’ll go 

for a cab, 

ANN. [alarmed] Oh, Granny, you mustn’t 

do that. 

OCTAVIUS. [broken-heartedly, rising] I’ll 

take her away, Mr. Ramsden. She had no right 

to come to your house.

ACT I 79 

RAMSDEN. [indignantly] But I am only 

too anxious to help her. [turning on Tanner] 

How dare you, sir, impute such monstrous intentions 

to me I protest against it. I am 

ready to put down my last penny to save her 

from being driven to run to you for protection. 

TANNER. [subsiding] It’s all right, then. 

He’s not going to act up to his principles. It’s 

agreed that we all stand by Violet. 

OCTAVIUS. But who is the man He can 

make reparation by marrying her; and he 

shall, or he shall answer for it to me. 

RAMSDEN. He shall, Octavius. There you 

speak like a man. 

TANNER. Then you don’t think him a 

scoundrel, after all 

OCTAVIUS. Not a scoundrel! He is a 

heartless scoundrel. 

RAMSDEN. A damned scoundrel. I beg 

your pardon, Annie; but I can say no less. 

TANNER. So we are to marry your sister 

to a damned scoundrel by way of reforming 

her character! On my soul, I think you are 

all mad. 

ANN. Don’t be absurd, Jack. Of course you 

are quite right, Tavy; but we don’t know who 

he is: Violet won’t tell us. 

TANNER. What on earth does it matter 

who he is He’s done his part; and Violet must 

do the rest. 

RAMSDEN. [beside himself ] Stuff! lunacy! 

There is a rascal in our midst, a libertine, a 

villain worse than a murderer; and we are not 

to learn who he is! In our ignorance we are to 

shake him by the hand; to introduce him into


our homes; to trust our daughters with him; 

to—to— 

ANN. [coaxingly] There, Granny, don’t talk 

so loud. It’s most shocking: we must all admit 

that; but if Violet won’t tell us, what can we 

do Nothing. Simply nothing. 

RAMSDEN. Hmph! I’m not so sure of that. 

If any man has paid Violet any special attention, 

we can easily find that out. If there is 

any man of notoriously loose principles among 

us— 

TANNER. Ahem! 

RAMSDEN. [raising his voice] Yes sir, I repeat, 

if there is any man of notoriously loose 

principles among us— 

TANNER. Or any man notoriously lacking 

in self-control. 

RAMSDEN. [aghast] Do you dare to suggest 

that I am capable of such an act 

TANNER. My dear Ramsden, this is an act 

of which every man is capable. That is what 

comes of getting at cross purposes with Nature. 

The suspicion you have just flung at 

me clings to us all. It’s a sort of mud that 

sticks to the judge’s ermine or the cardinal’s 

robe as fast as to the rags of the tramp. Come, 

Tavy: don’t look so bewildered: it might have 

been me: it might have been Ramsden; just as 

it might have been anybody. If it had, what 

could we do but lie and protest as Ramsden is 

going to protest. 

RAMSDEN. [choking] I—I—I— 

TANNER. Guilt itself could not stammer 

more confusedly, And yet you know perfectly 

well he’s innocent, Tavy.

ACT I 81 

RAMSDEN. [exhausted] I am glad you admit 

that, sir. I admit, myself, that there is 

an element of truth in what you say, grossly 

as you may distort it to gratify your malicious 

humor. I hope, Octavius, no suspicion of me is 

possible in your mind. 

OCTAVIUS. Of you! No, not for a moment. 

TANNER. [drily] I think he suspects me 

just a little. 

OCTAVIUS. Jack: you couldn’t—you 

wouldn’t— 

TANNER. Why not 

OCTAVIUS. [appalled] Why not! 

TANNER. Oh, well, I’ll tell you why not. 

First, you would feel bound to quarrel with 

me. Second, Violet doesn’t like me. Third, if 

I had the honor of being the father of Violet’s 

child, I should boast of it instead of denying it. 

So be easy: our Friendship is not in danger. 

OCTAVIUS. I should have put away the 

suspicion with horror if only you would think 

and feel naturally about it. I beg your pardon. 

TANNER. My pardon! nonsense! And now 

let’s sit down and have a family council. [He 

sits down. The rest follow his example, more 

or less under protest]. Violet is going to do 

the State a service; consequently she must be 

packed abroad like a criminal until it’s over. 

What’s happening upstairs 

ANN. Violet is in the housekeeper’s 

room—by herself, of course. 

TANNER. Why not in the drawing-room 

ANN. Don’t be absurd, Jack. Miss Ramsden 

is in the drawing-room with my mother, 

considering what to do.


TANNER. Oh! the housekeeper’s room is 

the penitentiary, I suppose; and the prisoner 

is waiting to be brought before her judges. The 

old cats! 

ANN. Oh, Jack! 

RAMSDEN. You are at present a guest beneath 

the roof of one of the old cats, sir. My 

sister is the mistress of this house. 

TANNER. She would put me in the housekeeper’s 

room, too, if she dared, Ramsden. 

However, I withdraw cats. Cats would have 

more sense. Ann: as your guardian, I order 

you to go to Violet at once and be particularly 

kind to her. 

ANN. I have seen her, Jack. And I am sorry 

to say I am afraid she is going to be rather 

obstinate about going abroad. I think Tavy 

ought to speak to her about it. 

OCTAVIUS. How can I speak to her about 

such a thing [he breaks down] 

ANN. Don’t break down, Ricky. Try to bear 

it for all our sakes. 

RAMSDEN. Life is not all plays and poems, 

Octavius. Come! face it like a man. 

TANNER. [chafing again] Poor dear 

brother! Poor dear friends of the family! 

Poor dear Tabbies and Grimalkins. Poor dear 

everybody except the woman who is going to 

risk her life to create another life! Tavy: don’t 

you be a selfish ass. Away with you and talk 

to Violet; and bring her down here if she cares 

to come. [Octavius rises]. Tell her we’ll stand 

by her. 

RAMSDEN. [rising] No, sir— 

TANNER. [rising also and interrupting

ACT I 83 

him] Oh, we understand: it’s against your conscience; 

but still you’ll do it. 

OCTAVIUS. I assure you all, on my word, I 

never meant to be selfish. It’s so hard to know 

what to do when one wishes earnestly to do 

right. 

TANNER. My dear Tavy, your pious English 

habit of regarding the world as a moral 

gymnasium built expressly to strengthen your 

character in, occasionally leads you to think 

about your own confounded principles when 

you should be thinking about other people’s 

necessities. The need of the present hour is a 

happy mother and a healthy baby. Bend your 

energies on that; and you will see your way 

clearly enough. 

Octavius, much perplexed, goes out. 

RAMSDEN. [facing Tanner impressively] 

And Morality, sir What is to become of that 

TANNER. Meaning a weeping Magdalen 

and an innocent child branded with her 

shame. Not in our circle, thank you. Morality 

can go to its father the devil. 

RAMSDEN. I thought so, sir. Morality sent 

to the devil to please our libertines, male and 

female. That is to be the future of England, is 

it 

TANNER. Oh, England will survive your 

disapproval. Meanwhile, I understand that 

you agree with me as to the practical course 

we are to take 

RAMSDEN. Not in your spirit sir. Not for 

your reasons. 

TANNER. You can explain that if anybody 

calls you to account, here or hereafter. [He


turns away, and plants himself in front of Mr. 

Herbert Spencer, at whom he stares gloomily]. 

ANN. [rising and coming to Ramsden] 

Granny: hadn’t you better go up to the 

drawing-room and tell them what we intend 

to do 

RAMSDEN. [looking pointedly at Tanner] 

I hardly like to leave you alone with this gentleman. 

Will you not come with me 

ANN. Miss Ramsden would not like to 

speak about it before me, Granny. I ought not 

to be present. 

RAMSDEN. You are right: I should have 

thought of that. You are a good girl, Annie. 

He pats her on the shoulder. She looks up at 

him with beaming eyes and he goes out, much 

moved. Having disposed of him, she looks at 

Tanner. His back being turned to her, she gives 

a moment’s attention to her personal appearance, 

then softly goes to him and speaks almost 

into his ear. 

ANN. Jack [he turns with a start]: are you 

glad that you are my guardian You don’t 

mind being made responsible for me, I hope. 

TANNER. The latest addition to your collection 

of scapegoats, eh 

ANN. Oh, that stupid old joke of yours 

about me! Do please drop it. Why do you say 

things that you know must pain me I do my 

best to please you, Jack: I suppose I may tell 

you so now that you are my guardian. You 

will make me so unhappy if you refuse to be 

friends with me. 

TANNER. [studying her as gloomily as he 

studied the dust] You need not go begging for

ACT I 85 

my regard. How unreal our moral judgments 

are! You seem to me to have absolutely no 

conscience—only hypocrisy; and you can’t see 

the difference—yet there is a sort of fascination 

about you. I always attend to you, somehow. 

I should miss you if I lost you. 

ANN. [tranquilly slipping her arm into his 

and walking about with him] But isn’t that 

only natural, Jack We have known each 

other since we were children. Do you remember 

TANNER. [abruptly breaking loose] Stop! 

I remember everything. 

ANN. Oh, I daresay we were often very 

silly; but— 

TANNER. I won’t have it, Ann. I am no 

more that schoolboy now than I am the dotard 

of ninety I shall grow into if I live long enough. 

It is over: let me forget it. 

ANN. Wasn’t it a happy time [She attempts 

to take his arm again]. 

TANNER. Sit down and behave yourself. 

[He makes her sit down in the chair next the 

writing table]. No doubt it was a happy time 

for you. You were a good girl and never compromised 

yourself. And yet the wickedest 

child that ever was slapped could hardly have 

had a better time. I can understand the success 

with which you bullied the other girls: 

your virtue imposed on them. But tell me this: 

did you ever know a good boy 

ANN. Of course. All boys are foolish sometimes; 

but Tavy was always a really good boy. 

TANNER. [struck by this] Yes: you’re right. 

For some reason you never tempted Tavy.


ANN. Tempted! Jack! 

TANNER. Yes, my dear Lady Mephistopheles, 

tempted. You were insatiably curious 

as to what a boy might be capable of, and diabolically 

clever at getting through his guard 

and surprising his inmost secrets. 

ANN. What nonsense! All because you 

used to tell me long stories of the wicked 

things you had done—silly boys’ tricks! And 

you call such things inmost secrets: Boys’ secrets 

are just like men’s; and you know what 

they are! 

TANNER. [obstinately] No I don’t. What 

are they, pray 

ANN. Why, the things they tell everybody, 

of course. 

TANNER. Now I swear I told you things I 

told no one else. You lured me into a compact 

by which we were to have no secrets from one 

another. We were to tell one another everything, 

I didn’t notice that you never told me 

anything. 

ANN. You didn’t want to talk about me, 

Jack. You wanted to talk about yourself. 

TANNER. Ah, true, horribly true. But 

what a devil of a child you must have been to 

know that weakness and to play on it for the 

satisfaction of your own curiosity! I wanted to 

brag to you, to make myself interesting. And 

I found myself doing all sorts of mischievous 

things simply to have something to tell you 

about. I fought with boys I didn’t hate; I lied 

about things I might just as well have told 

the truth about; I stole things I didn’t want; 

I kissed little girls I didn’t care for. It was all

ACT I 87 

bravado: passionless and therefore unreal. 

ANN. I never told of you, Jack. 

TANNER. No; but if you had wanted to 

stop me you would have told of me. You 

wanted me to go on. 

ANN. [flashing out] Oh, that’s not true: 

it’s not true, Jack. I never wanted you to do 

those dull, disappointing, brutal, stupid, vulgar 

things. I always hoped that it would be 

something really heroic at last. [Recovering 

herself ] Excuse me, Jack; but the things you 

did were never a bit like the things I wanted 

you to do. They often gave me great uneasiness; 

but I could not tell on you and get you 

into trouble. And you were only a boy. I knew 

you would grow out of them. Perhaps I was 

wrong. 

TANNER. [sardonically] Do not give way 

to remorse, Ann. At least nineteen twentieths 

of the exploits I confessed to you were pure 

lies. I soon noticed that you didn’t like the 

true stories. 

ANN. Of course I knew that some of the 

things couldn’t have happened. But— 

TANNER. You are going to remind me that 

some of the most disgraceful ones did. 

ANN. [fondly, to his great terror] I don’t 

want to remind you of anything. But I knew 

the people they happened to, and heard about 

them. 

TANNER. Yes; but even the true stories 

were touched up for telling. A sensitive boy’s 

humiliations may be very good fun for ordinary 

thick-skinned grown-ups; but to the boy 

himself they are so acute, so ignominious,


that he cannot confess them—cannot but deny 

them passionately. However, perhaps it was 

as well for me that I romanced a bit; for, on 

the one occasion when I told you the truth, you 

threatened to tell of me. 

ANN. Oh, never. Never once. 

TANNER. Yes, you did. Do you remember 

a dark-eyed girl named Rachel Rosetree 

[Ann’s brows contract for an instant involuntarily]. 

I got up a love affair with her; and we 

met one night in the garden and walked about 

very uncomfortably with our arms round one 

another, and kissed at parting, and were most 

conscientiously romantic. If that love affair 

had gone on, it would have bored me to death; 

but it didn’t go on; for the next thing that happened 

was that Rachel cut me because she 

found out that I had told you. How did she 

find it out From you. You went to her and 

held the guilty secret over her head, leading 

her a life of abject terror and humiliation by 

threatening to tell on her. 

ANN. And a very good thing for her, too. It 

was my duty to stop her misconduct; and she 

is thankful to me for it now. 

TANNER. Is she 

ANN. She ought to be, at all events. 

TANNER. It was not your duty to stop my 

misconduct, I suppose. 

ANN. I did stop it by stopping her. 

TANNER. Are you sure of that You 

stopped my telling you about my adventures; 

but how do you know that you stopped the adventures 

ANN. Do you mean to say that you went on

ACT I 89 

in the same way with other girls 

TANNER. No. I had enough of that sort of 

romantic tomfoolery with Rachel. 

ANN. [unconvinced] Then why did you 

break off our confidences and become quite 

strange to me 

TANNER. [enigmatically] It happened just 

then that I got something that I wanted to 

keep all to myself instead of sharing it with 

you. 

ANN. I am sure I shouldn’t have asked for 

any of it if you had grudged it. 

TANNER. It wasn’t a box of sweets, Ann. 

It was something you’d never have let me call 

my own. 

ANN. [incredulously] What 

TANNER. My soul. 

ANN. Oh, do be sensible, Jack. You know 

you’re talking nonsense. 

TANNER. The most solemn earnest, Ann. 

You didn’t notice at that time that you were 

getting a soul too. But you were. It was not 

for nothing that you suddenly found you had 

a moral duty to chastise and reform Rachel. 

Up to that time you had traded pretty extensively 

in being a good child; but you had never 

set up a sense of duty to others. Well, I set one 

up too. Up to that time I had played the boy 

buccaneer with no more conscience than a fox 

in a poultry farm. But now I began to have 

scruples, to feel obligations, to find that veracity 

and honor were no longer goody-goody 

expressions in the mouths of grown up people, 

but compelling principles in myself. 

ANN. [quietly] Yes, I suppose you’re right.


You were beginning to be a man, and I to be a 

woman. 

TANNER. Are you sure it was not that we 

were beginning to be something more What 

does the beginning of manhood and womanhood 

mean in most people’s mouths You 

know: it means the beginning of love. But love 

began long before that for me. Love played its 

part in the earliest dreams and follies and romances 

I can remember—may I say the earliest 

follies and romances we can remember—- 

though we did not understand it at the time. 

No: the change that came to me was the birth 

in me of moral passion; and I declare that according 

to my experience moral passion is the 

only real passion. 

ANN. All passions ought to be moral, Jack. 

TANNER. Ought! Do you think that anything 

is strong enough to impose oughts on a 

passion except a stronger passion still 

ANN. Our moral sense controls passion, 

Jack. Don’t be stupid. 

TANNER. Our moral sense! And is that 

not a passion Is the devil to have all the passions 

as well as all the good times If it were 

not a passion—if it were not the mightiest 

of the passions, all the other passions would 

sweep it away like a leaf before a hurricane. It 

is the birth of that passion that turns a child 

into a man. 

ANN. There are other passions, Jack. Very 

strong ones. 

TANNER. All the other passions were 

in me before; but they were idle and 

aimless—mere childish greedinesses and cru-

ACT I 91 

elties, curiosities and fancies, habits and superstitions, 

grotesque and ridiculous to the 

mature intelligence. When they suddenly began 

to shine like newly lit flames it was by no 

light of their own, but by the radiance of the 

dawning moral passion. That passion dignified 

them, gave them conscience and meaning, 

found them a mob of appetites and organized 

them into an army of purposes and principles. 

My soul was born of that passion. 

ANN. I noticed that you got more sense. 

You were a dreadfully destructive boy before 

that. 

TANNER. Destructive! Stuff! I was only 

mischievous. 

ANN. Oh Jack, you were very destructive. 

You ruined all the young fir trees by chopping 

off their leaders with a wooden sword. You 

broke all the cucumber frames with your catapult. 

You set fire to the common: the police 

arrested Tavy for it because he ran away when 

he couldn’t stop you. You— 

TANNER. Pooh! pooh! pooh! these were 

battles, bombardments, stratagems to save 

our scalps from the red Indians. You have 

no imagination, Ann. I am ten times more 

destructive now than I was then. The moral 

passion has taken my destructiveness in hand 

and directed it to moral ends. I have become 

a reformer, and, like all reformers, an iconoclast. 

I no longer break cucumber frames and 

burn gorse bushes: I shatter creeds and demolish 

idols. 

ANN. [bored] I am afraid I am too feminine 

to see any sense in destruction. Destruction


can only destroy. 

TANNER. Yes. That is why it is so useful. 

Construction cumbers the ground with 

institutions made by busybodies. Destruction 

clears it and gives us breathing space and liberty. 

ANN. It’s no use, Jack. No woman will 

agree with you there. 

TANNER. That’s because you confuse construction 

and destruction with creation and 

murder. They’re quite different: I adore creation 

and abhor murder. Yes: I adore it in tree 

and flower, in bird and beast, even in you. [A 

flush of interest and delight suddenly clears 

the growing perplexity and boredom from her 

face]. It was the creative instinct that led you 

to attach me to you by bonds that have left 

their mark on me to this day. Yes, Ann: the 

old childish compact between us was an unconscious 

love compact. 

ANN. Jack! 

TANNER. Oh, don’t be alarmed— 

ANN. I am not alarmed. 

TANNER. [whimsically] Then you ought to 

be: where are your principles 

ANN. Jack: are you serious or are you not 

TANNER. Do you mean about the moral 

passion 

ANN. No, no; the other one. [Confused] Oh! 

you are so silly; one never knows how to take 

you. 

TANNER. You must take me quite seriously. 

I am your guardian; and it is my duty 

to improve your mind.

ACT I 93 

ANN. The love compact is over, then, is it 

I suppose you grew tired of me 

TANNER. No; but the moral passion made 

our childish relations impossible. A jealous 

sense of my new individuality arose in me. 

ANN. You hated to be treated as a boy any 

longer. Poor Jack! 

TANNER. Yes, because to be treated as a 

boy was to be taken on the old footing. I had 

become a new person; and those who knew the 

old person laughed at me. The only man who 

behaved sensibly was my tailor: he took my 

measure anew every time he saw me, whilst 

all the rest went on with their old measurements 

and expected them to fit me. 

ANN. You became frightfully self-conscious. 

TANNER. When you go to heaven, Ann, 

you will be frightfully conscious of your wings 

for the first year or so. When you meet your 

relatives there, and they persist in treating 

you as if you were still a mortal, you will not 

be able to bear them. You will try to get into 

a circle which has never known you except as 

an angel. 

ANN. So it was only your vanity that made 

you run away from us after all 

TANNER. Yes, only my vanity, as you call 

it. 

ANN. You need not have kept away from 

me on that account. 

TANNER. From you above all others. 

You fought harder than anybody against my 

emancipation. 

ANN. [earnestly] Oh, how wrong you are! I


would have done anything for you. 

TANNER. Anything except let me get loose 

from you. Even then you had acquired by instinct 

that damnable woman’s trick of heaping 

obligations on a man, of placing yourself 

so entirely and helplessly at his mercy that at 

last he dare not take a step without running to 

you for leave. I know a poor wretch whose one 

desire in life is to run away from his wife. She 

prevents him by threatening to throw herself 

in front of the engine of the train he leaves her 

in. That is what all women do. If we try to go 

where you do not want us to go there is no law 

to prevent us, but when we take the first step 

your breasts are under our foot as it descends: 

your bodies are under our wheels as we start. 

No woman shall ever enslave me in that way. 

ANN. But, Jack, you cannot get through 

life without considering other people a little. 

TANNER. Ay; but what other people It 

is this consideration of other people or rather 

this cowardly fear of them which we call 

consideration that makes us the sentimental 

slaves we are. To consider you, as you call it, 

is to substitute your will for my own. How 

if it be a baser will than mine Are women 

taught better than men or worse Are mobs of 

voters taught better than statesmen or worse 

Worse, of course, in both cases. And then what 

sort of world are you going to get, with its public 

men considering its voting mobs, and its 

private men considering their wives What 

does Church and State mean nowadays The 

Woman and the Ratepayer. 

ANN. [placidly] I am so glad you under-

ACT I 95 

stand politics, Jack: it will be most useful to 

you if you go into parliament [he collapses 

like a pricked bladder]. But I am sorry you 

thought my influence a bad one. 

TANNER. I don’t say it was a bad one. But 

bad or good, I didn’t choose to be cut to your 

measure. And I won’t be cut to it. 

ANN. Nobody wants you to, Jack. I assure 

you—really on my word—I don’t mind 

your queer opinions one little bit. You know 

we have all been brought up to have advanced 

opinions. Why do you persist in thinking me 

so narrow minded 

TANNER. That’s the danger of it. I know 

you don’t mind, because you’ve found out that 

it doesn’t matter. The boa constrictor doesn’t 

mind the opinions of a stag one little bit when 

once she has got her coils round it. 

ANN. [rising in sudden enlightenment] O- 

o-o-o-oh! Now I understand why you warned 

Tavy that I am a boa constrictor. Granny told 

me. [She laughs and throws her boa around 

his neck]. Doesn’t it feel nice and soft, Jack 

TANNER. [in the toils] You scandalous 

woman, will you throw away even your 

hypocrisy 

ANN. I am never hypocritical with you, 

Jack. Are you angry [She withdraws the boa 

and throws it on a chair]. Perhaps I shouldn’t 

have done that. 

TANNER. [contemptuously] Pooh, prudery! 

Why should you not, if it amuses you 

ANN. [Shyly] Well, because—because I 

suppose what you really meant by the boa constrictor 

was this [she puts her arms round his


neck]. 

TANNER. [Staring at her] Magnificent audacity! 

[She laughs and pats his cheeks]. Now 

just to think that if I mentioned this episode 

not a soul would believe me except the people 

who would cut me for telling, whilst if you 

accused me of it nobody would believe my denial. 

ANN. [taking her arms away with perfect 

dignity] You are incorrigible, Jack. But you 

should not jest about our affection for one another. 

Nobody could possibly misunderstand 

it. You do not misunderstand it, I hope. 

TANNER. My blood interprets for me, 

Ann. Poor Ricky Tiky Tavy! 

ANN. [looking quickly at him as if this were 

a new light] Surely you are not so absurd as to 

be jealous of Tavy. 

TANNER. Jealous! Why should I be But 

I don’t wonder at your grip of him. I feel the 

coils tightening round my very self, though 

you are only playing with me. 

ANN. Do you think I have designs on Tavy 

TANNER. I know you have. 

ANN. [earnestly] Take care, Jack. You may 

make Tavy very happy if you mislead him 

about me. 

TANNER. Never fear: he will not escape 

you. 

ANN. I wonder are you really a clever man! 

TANNER. Why this sudden misgiving on 

the subject 

ANN. You seem to understand all the 

things I don’t understand; but you are a perfect 

baby in the things I do understand.

ACT I 97 

TANNER. I understand how Tavy feels for 

you, Ann; you may depend on that, at all 

events. 

ANN. And you think you understand how 

I feel for Tavy, don’t you 

TANNER. I know only too well what is going 

to happen to poor Tavy. 

ANN. I should laugh at you, Jack, if it were 

not for poor papa’s death. Mind! Tavy will be 

very unhappy. 

TANNER. Yes; but he won’t know it, poor 

devil. He is a thousand times too good for you. 

That’s why he is going to make the mistake of 

his life about you. 

ANN. I think men make more mistakes by 

being too clever than by being too good [she 

sits down, with a trace of contempt for the 

whole male sex in the elegant carriage of her 

shoulders]. 

TANNER. Oh, I know you don’t care very 

much about Tavy. But there is always one who 

kisses and one who only allows the kiss. Tavy 

will kiss; and you will only turn the cheek. 

And you will throw him over if anybody better 

turns up. 

ANN. [offended] You have no right to say 

such things, Jack. They are not true, and not 

delicate. If you and Tavy choose to be stupid 

about me, that is not my fault. 

TANNER. [remorsefully] Forgive my brutalities, 

Ann. They are levelled at this wicked 

world, not at you. [She looks up at him, 

pleased and forgiving. He becomes cautious at 

once]. All the same, I wish Ramsden would 

come back. I never feel safe with you: there is


a devilish charm—or no: not a charm, a subtle 

interest [she laughs]. Just so: you know 

it; and you triumph in it. Openly and shamelessly 

triumph in it! 

ANN. What a shocking flirt you are, Jack! 

TANNER. A flirt!! I!! 

ANN. Yes, a flirt. You are always abusing 

and offending people. but you never really 

mean to let go your hold of them. 

TANNER. I will ring the bell. This conversation 

has already gone further than I intended. 

Ramsden and Octavius come back with 

Miss Ramsden, a hardheaded old maiden lady 

in a plain brown silk gown, with enough rings, 

chains and brooches to show that her plainness 

of dress is a matter of principle, not of 

poverty. She comes into the room very determinedly: 

the two men, perplexed and downcast, 

following her. Ann rises and goes eagerly 

to meet her. Tanner retreats to the wall between 

the busts and pretends to study the pictures. 

Ramsden goes to his table as usual; and 

Octavius clings to the neighborhood of Tanner. 

MISS RAMSDEN. [almost pushing Ann 

aside as she comes to Mr. Whitefield’s chair 

and plants herself there resolutely] I wash my 

hands of the whole affair. 

OCTAVIUS. [very wretched] I know you 

wish me to take Violet away, Miss Ramsden. 

I will. [He turns irresolutely to the door]. 

RAMSDEN. No no— 

MISS RAMSDEN. What is the use of saying 

no, Roebuck Octavius knows that I would 

not turn any truly contrite and repentant

ACT I 99 

woman from your doors. But when a woman 

is not only wicked, but intends to go on being 

wicked, she and I part company. 

ANN. Oh, Miss Ramsden, what do you 

mean What has Violet said 

RAMSDEN. Violet is certainly very obstinate. 

She won’t leave London. I don’t understand 

her. 

MISS RAMSDEN. I do. It’s as plain as the 

nose on your face, Roebuck, that she won’t go 

because she doesn’t want to be separated from 

this man, whoever he is. 

ANN. Oh, surely, surely! Octavius: did you 

speak to her 

OCTAVIUS. She won’t tell us anything. 

She won’t make any arrangement until she 

has consulted somebody. It can’t be anybody 

else than the scoundrel who has betrayed her. 

TANNER. [to Octavius] Well, let her consult 

him. He will be glad enough to have her 

sent abroad. Where is the difficulty 

MISS RAMSDEN. [Taking the answer out 

of Octavius’s mouth]. The difficulty, Mr. Jack, 

is that when I offered to help her I didn’t offer 

to become her accomplice in her wickedness. 

She either pledges her word never to see that 

man again, or else she finds some new friends; 

and the sooner the better. [The parlormaid 

appears at the door. Ann hastily resumes her 

seat, and looks as unconcerned as possible. Octavius 

instinctively imitates her]. 

THE MAID. The cab is at the door, ma’am. 

MISS RAMSDEN. What cab 

THE MAID. For Miss Robinson. 

MISS RAMSDEN. Oh! [Recovering her-


self ] All right. [The maid withdraws]. She has 

sent for a cab. 

TANNER. I wanted to send for that cab 

half an hour ago. 

MISS RAMSDEN. I am glad she understands 

the position she has placed herself in. 

RAMSDEN. I don’t like her going away in 

this fashion, Susan. We had better not do anything 

harsh. 

OCTAVIUS. No: thank you again and 

again; but Miss Ramsden is quite right. Violet 

cannot expect to stay. 

ANN. Hadn’t you better go with her, Tavy 

OCTAVIUS. She won’t have me. 

MISS RAMSDEN. Of course she won’t. 

She’s going straight to that man. 

TANNER. As a natural result of her virtuous 

reception here. 

RAMSDEN. [much troubled] There, Susan! 

You hear! and there’s some truth in it. 

I wish you could reconcile it with your principles 

to be a little patient with this poor girl. 

She’s very young; and there’s a time for everything. 

MISS RAMSDEN. Oh, she will get all the 

sympathy she wants from the men. I’m surprised 

at you, Roebuck. 

TANNER. So am I, Ramsden, most favorably. 

Violet appears at the door. She is as impenitent 

and self-assured a young lady as one 

would desire to see among the best behaved 

of her sex. Her small head and tiny resolute 

mouth and chin; her haughty crispness 

of speech and trimness of carriage; the ruth-

ACT I 101 

less elegance of her equipment, which includes 

a very smart hat with a dead bird in it, mark 

a personality which is as formidable as it is 

exquisitely pretty. She is not a siren, like Ann: 

admiration comes to her without any compulsion 

or even interest on her part; besides, 

there is some fun in Ann, but in this woman 

none, perhaps no mercy either: if anything restrains 

her, it is intelligence and pride, not 

compassion. Her voice might be the voice of 

a schoolmistress addressing a class of girls 

who had disgraced themselves, as she proceeds 

with complete composure and some disgust to 

say what she has come to say. 

VIOLET. I have only looked in to tell 

Miss Ramsden that she will find her birthday 

present to me, the filagree bracelet, in the 

housekeeper’s room. 

TANNER. Do come in, Violet, and talk to 

us sensibly. 

VIOLET. Thank you: I have had quite 

enough of the family conversation this morning. 

So has your mother, Ann: she has gone 

home crying. But at all events, I have found 

out what some of my pretended friends are 

worth. Good bye. 

TANNER. No, no: one moment. I have 

something to say which I beg you to hear. [She 

looks at him without the slightest curiosity, but 

waits, apparently as much to finish getting her 

glove on as to hear what he has to say]. I am 

altogether on your side in this matter. I congratulate 

you, with the sincerest respect, on 

having the courage to do what you have done. 

You are entirely in the right; and the family is


entirely in the wrong. 

Sensation. Ann and Miss Ramsden rise 

and turn toward the two. Violet, more surprised 

than any of the others, forgets her glove, 

and comes forward into the middle of the 

room, both puzzled and displeased. Octavius 

alone does not move or raise his head; he is 

overwhelmed with shame. 

ANN. [pleading to Tanner to be sensible] 

Jack! 

MISS RAMSDEN. [outraged] Well, I must 

say! 

VIOLET. [sharply to Tanner] Who told 

you 

TANNER. Why, Ramsden and Tavy of 

course. Why should they not 

VIOLET. But they don’t know. 

TANNER. Don’t know what 

VIOLET. They don’t know that I am in the 

right, I mean. 

TANNER. Oh, they know it in their hearts, 

though they think themselves bound to blame 

you by their silly superstitions about morality 

and propriety and so forth. But I know, 

and the whole world really knows, though it 

dare not say so, that you were right to follow 

your instinct; that vitality and bravery are 

the greatest qualities a woman can have, and 

motherhood her solemn initiation into womanhood; 

and that the fact of your not being 

legally married matters not one scrap either 

to your own worth or to our real regard for 

you. 

VIOLET. [flushing with indignation] Oh! 

You think me a wicked woman, like the rest.

ACT I 103 

You think I have not only been vile, but that I 

share your abominable opinions. Miss Ramsden: 

I have borne your hard words because I 

knew you would be sorry for them when you 

found out the truth. But I won’t bear such a 

horrible insult as to be complimented by Jack 

on being one of the wretches of whom he approves. 

I have kept my marriage a secret for 

my husband’s sake. But now I claim my right 

as a married woman not to be insulted. 

OCTAVIUS. [raising his head with inexpressible 

relief ] You are married! 

VIOLET. Yes; and I think you might have 

guessed it. What business had you all to take 

it for granted that I had no right to wear my 

wedding ring Not one of you even asked me: 

I cannot forget that. 

TANNER. [in ruins] I am utterly crushed. 

I meant well—I apologize—abjectly apologize. 

VIOLET. I hope you will be more careful 

in future about the things you say. Of course 

one does not take them seriously. But they are 

very disagreeable, and rather in bad taste. 

TANNER. [bowing to the storm] I have no 

defence: I shall know better in future than 

to take any woman’s part. We have all disgraced 

ourselves in your eyes, I am afraid, except 

Ann, she befriended you. For Ann’s sake, 

forgive us. 

VIOLET. Yes: Ann has been very kind; but 

then Ann knew. 

TANNER. Oh! 

MISS RAMSDEN. [stiffly] And who, pray, 

is the gentleman who does not acknowledge 

his wife


VIOLET. [promptly] That is my business, 

Miss Ramsden, and not yours. I have my reasons 

for keeping my marriage a secret for the 

present. 

RAMSDEN. All I can say is that we are extremely 

sorry, Violet. I am shocked to think of 

how we have treated you. 

OCTAVIUS. [awkwardly] I beg your pardon, 

Violet. I can say no more. 

MISS RAMSDEN. [still loth to surrender] 

Of course what you say puts a very different 

complexion on the matter. All the same, I owe 

it to myself— 

VIOLET. [cutting her short] You owe me an 

apology, Miss Ramsden: that’s what you owe 

both to yourself and to me. If you were a married 

woman you would not like sitting in the 

housekeeper’s room and being treated like a 

naughty child by young girls and old ladies 

without any serious duties and responsibilities. 

TANNER. Don’t hit us when we’re down, 

Violet. We seem to have made fools of ourselves; 

but really it was you who made fools of 

us. 

VIOLET. It was no business of yours, Jack, 

in any case. 

TANNER. No business of mine! Why, 

Ramsden as good as accused me of being the 

unknown gentleman. 

Ramsden makes a frantic demonstration; 

but Violet’s cool keen anger extinguishes it. 

VIOLET. You! Oh, how infamous! how 

abominable! How disgracefully you have all 

been talking about me! If my husband knew

ACT I 105 

it he would never let me speak to any of you 

again. [To Ramsden] I think you might have 

spared me, at least. 

RAMSDEN. But I assure you I never—at 

least it is a monstrous perversion of something 

I said that— 

MISS RAMSDEN. You needn’t apologize, 

Roebuck. She brought it all on herself. It is 

for her to apologize for having deceived us. 

VIOLET. I can make allowances for you, 

Miss Ramsden: you cannot understand how 

I feel on this subject though I should have 

expected rather better taste from people of 

greater experience. However, I quite feel 

that you have all placed yourselves in a very 

painful position; and the most truly considerate 

thing for me to do is to go at once. Good 

morning. 

MISS RAMSDEN. Well, I must say—! 

RAMSDEN. [plaintively] I don’t think she 

is quite fair to us. 

TANNER. You must cower before the wedding 

ring like the rest of us, Ramsden. The 

cup of our ignominy is full.

106 MAN AND SUPERMAN

ACT II 

On the carriage drive in the park of a country 

house near Richmond a motor car has broken 

down. It stands in front of a clump of trees 

round which the drive sweeps to the house, 

which is partly visible through them: indeed 

Tanner, standing in the drive with the car on 

his right hand, could get an unobstructed view 

of the west corner of the house on his left were 

he not far too much interested in a pair of 

supine legs in blue serge trousers which protrude 

from beneath the machine. He is watching 

them intently with bent back and hands 

supported on his knees. His leathern overcoat 

and peaked cap proclaim him one of the dismounted 

passengers. 

THE LEGS. Aha! I got him. 

TANNER. All right now 

THE LEGS. All right now. 

Tanner stoops and takes the legs by the ankles, 

drawing their owner forth like a wheelbarrow, 

walking on his hands, with a hammer 

in his mouth. He is a young man in a neat 

suit of blue serge, clean shaven, dark eyed, 

square fingered, with short well brushed black 

hair and rather irregular sceptically turned 

107


eyebrows. When he is manipulating the car 

his movements are swift and sudden, yet attentive 

and deliberate. With Tanner and Tanner’s 

friends his manner is not in the least deferential, 

but cool and reticent, keeping them quite 

effectually at a distance whilst giving them no 

excuse for complaining of him. Nevertheless he 

has a vigilant eye on them always, and that, 

too, rather cynically, like a man who knows 

the world well from its seamy side. He speaks 

slowly and with a touch of sarcasm; and as 

he does not at all affect the gentleman in his 

speech, it may be inferred that his smart appearance 

is a mark of respect to himself and 

his own class, not to that which employs him. 

He now gets into the car to test his machinery 

and put his cap and overcoat on 

again. Tanner takes off his leather overcoat 

and pitches it into the car. The chauffeur 

(or automobilist or motoreer or whatever England 

may presently decide to call him) looks 

round inquiringly in the act of stowing away 

his hammer. 

THE CHAUFFEUR. Had enough of it, eh 

TANNER. I may as well walk to the house 

and stretch my legs and calm my nerves a little. 

[Looking at his watch] I suppose you know 

that we have come from Hyde Park Corner to 

Richmond in twenty-one minutes. 

THE CHAUFFEUR. I’d have done it under 

fifteen if I’d had a clear road all the way. 

TANNER. Why do you do it Is it for love 

of sport or for the fun of terrifying your unfortunate 

employer 

THE CHAUFFEUR. What are you afraid

ACT II 109 

of 

TANNER. The police, and breaking my 

neck. 

THE CHAUFFEUR. Well, if you like easy 

going, you can take a bus, you know. It’s 

cheaper. You pay me to save your time and 

give you the value of your thousand pound car. 

[He sits down calmly]. 

TANNER. I am the slave of that car and 

of you too. I dream of the accursed thing at 

night. 

THE CHAUFFEUR. You’ll get over that. If 

you’re going up to the house, may I ask how 

long you’re goin to stay there Because if you 

mean to put in the whole morning talkin to 

the ladies, I’ll put the car in the stables and 

make myself comfortable. If not, I’ll keep the 

car on the go about here til you come. 

TANNER. Better wait here. We shan’t be 

long. There’s a young American gentleman, a 

Mr. Malone, who is driving Mr. Robinson down 

in his new American steam car. 

THE CHAUFFEUR. [springing up and 

coming hastily out of the car to Tanner] American 

steam car! Wot! racin us down from London! 

TANNER. Perhaps they’re here already. 

THE CHAUFFEUR. If I’d known it! [with 

deep reproach] Why didn’t you tell me, Mr. 

Tanner 

TANNER. Because I’ve been told that this 

car is capable of 84 miles an hour; and I already 

know what you are capable of when 

there is a rival car on the road. No, Henry: 

there are things it is not good for you to know;


and this was one of them. However, cheer up: 

we are going to have a day after your own 

heart. The American is to take Mr. Robinson 

and his sister and Miss Whitefield. We are to 

take Miss Rhoda. 

THE CHAUFFEUR. [consoled, and musing 

on another matter] That’s Miss Whitefield’s 

sister, isn’t it 

TANNER. Yes. 

THE CHAUFFEUR. And Miss Whitefield 

herself is goin in the other car Not with you 

TANNER. Why the devil should she come 

with me Mr. Robinson will be in the other car. 

[The Chauffeur looks at Tanner with cool incredulity, 

and turns to the car, whistling a popular 

air softly to himself. Tanner, a little annoyed, 

is about to pursue the subject when he 

hears the footsteps of Octavius on the gravel. 

Octavius is coming from the house, dressed for 

motoring, but without his overcoat]. We’ve lost 

the race, thank Heaven: here’s Mr. Robinson. 

Well, Tavy, is the steam car a success 

OCTAVIUS. I think so. We came from 

Hyde Park Corner here in seventeen minutes. 

[The Chauffeur, furious, kicks the car with a 

groan of vexation]. How long were you 

TANNER. Oh, about three quarters of an 

hour or so. 

THE CHAUFFEUR. [remonstrating] Now, 

now, Mr. Tanner, come now! We could ha done 

it easy under fifteen. 

TANNER. By the way, let me introduce 

you. Mr. Octavius Robinson: Mr. Enry 

Straker. 

STRAKER. Pleased to meet you, sir. Mr.

ACT II 111 

Tanner is gittin at you with his Enry Straker, 

you know. You call it Henery. But I don’t 

mind, bless you. 

TANNER. You think it’s simply bad taste 

in me to chaff him, Tavy. But you’re wrong. 

This man takes more trouble to drop his 

aiches than ever his father did to pick them 

up. It’s a mark of caste to him. I have never 

met anybody more swollen with the pride of 

class than Enry is. 

STRAKER. Easy, easy! A little moderation, 

Mr. Tanner. 

TANNER. A little moderation, Tavy, you 

observe. You would tell me to draw it mild, 

But this chap has been educated. What’s 

more, he knows that we haven’t. What was 

that board school of yours, Straker 

STRAKER. Sherbrooke Road. 

TANNER. Sherbrooke Road! Would any of 

us say Rugby! Harrow! Eton! in that tone of 

intellectual snobbery Sherbrooke Road is a 

place where boys learn something; Eton is a 

boy farm where we are sent because we are 

nuisances at home, and because in after life, 

whenever a Duke is mentioned, we can claim 

him as an old schoolfellow. 

STRAKER. You don’t know nothing about 

it, Mr. Tanner. It’s not the Board School that 

does it: it’s the Polytechnic. 

TANNER. His university, Octavius. Not 

Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Dublin or Glasgow. 

Not even those Nonconformist holes in 

Wales. No, Tavy. Regent Street, Chelsea, the 

Borough—I don’t know half their confounded 

names: these are his universities, not mere


shops for selling class limitations like ours. 

You despise Oxford, Enry, don’t you 

STRAKER. No, I don’t. Very nice sort of 

place, Oxford, I should think, for people that 

like that sort of place. They teach you to be 

a gentleman there. In the Polytechnic they 

teach you to be an engineer or such like. See 

TANNER. Sarcasm, Tavy, sarcasm! Oh, if 

you could only see into Enry’s soul, the depth 

of his contempt for a gentleman, the arrogance 

of his pride in being an engineer, would 

appal you. He positively likes the car to break 

down because it brings out my gentlemanly 

helplessness and his workmanlike skill and 

resource. 

STRAKER. Never you mind him, Mr. 

Robinson. He likes to talk. We know him, 

don’t we 

OCTAVIUS. [earnestly] But there’s a great 

truth at the bottom of what he says. I believe 

most intensely in the dignity of labor. 

STRAKER. [unimpressed] That’s because 

you never done any Mr. Robinson. My business 

is to do away with labor. You’ll get more 

out of me and a machine than you will out of 

twenty laborers, and not so much to drink either. 

TANNER. For Heaven’s sake, Tavy, don’t 

start him on political economy. He knows all 

about it; and we don’t. You’re only a poetic 

Socialist, Tavy: he’s a scientific one. 

STRAKER. [unperturbed] Yes. Well, this 

conversation is very improvin; but I’ve got to 

look after the car; and you two want to talk 

about your ladies. I know. [He retires to busy

ACT II 113 

himself about the car; and presently saunters 

off towards the house]. 

TANNER. That’s a very momentous social 

phenomenon. 

OCTAVIUS. What is 

TANNER. Straker is. Here have we literary 

and cultured persons been for years setting 

up a cry of the New Woman whenever 

some unusually old fashioned female came 

along; and never noticing the advent of the 

New Man. Straker’s the New Man. 

OCTAVIUS. I see nothing new about him, 

except your way of chaffing him. But I don’t 

want to talk about him just now. I want to 

speak to you about Ann. 

TANNER. Straker knew even that. He 

learnt it at the Polytechnic, probably. Well, 

what about Ann Have you proposed to her 

OCTAVIUS. [self-reproachfully] I was 

brute enough to do so last night. 

TANNER. Brute enough! What do you 

mean 

OCTAVIUS. [dithyrambically] Jack: we 

men are all coarse. We never understand how 

exquisite a woman’s sensibilities are. How 

could I have done such a thing! 

TANNER. Done what, you maudlin idiot 

OCTAVIUS. Yes, I am an idiot. Jack: if you 

had heard her voice! if you had seen her tears! 

I have lain awake all night thinking of them. 

If she had reproached me, I could have borne 

it better. 

TANNER. Tears! that’s dangerous. What 

did she say 

OCTAVIUS. She asked me how she could


think of anything now but her dear father. 

She stifled a sob— [he breaks down]. 

TANNER. [patting him on the back] Bear 

it like a man, Tavy, even if you feel it like an 

ass. It’s the old game: she’s not tired of playing 

with you yet. 

OCTAVIUS. [impatiently] Oh, don’t be a 

fool, Jack. Do you suppose this eternal shallow 

cynicism of yours has any real bearing on 

a nature like hers 

TANNER. Hm! Did she say anything else 

OCTAVIUS. Yes; and that is why I expose 

myself and her to your ridicule by telling you 

what passed. 

TANNER. [remorsefully] No, dear Tavy, 

not ridicule, on my honor! However, no matter. 

Go on. 

OCTAVIUS. Her sense of duty is so devout, 

so perfect, so— 

TANNER. Yes: I know. Go on. 

OCTAVIUS. You see, under this new 

arrangement, you and Ramsden are her 

guardians; and she considers that all her duty 

to her father is now transferred to you. She 

said she thought I ought to have spoken to 

you both in the first instance. Of course she 

is right; but somehow it seems rather absurd 

that I am to come to you and formally ask to 

be received as a suitor for your ward’s hand. 

TANNER. I am glad that love has not totally 

extinguished your sense of humor, Tavy. 

OCTAVIUS. That answer won’t satisfy her. 

TANNER. My official answer is, obviously, 

Bless you, my children: may you be happy! 

OCTAVIUS. I wish you would stop playing

ACT II 115 

the fool about this. If it is not serious to you, 

it is to me, and to her. 

TANNER. You know very well that she is 

as free to choose as you. 

OCTAVIUS. She does not think so. 

TANNER. Oh, doesn’t she! just! However, 

say what you want me to do. 

OCTAVIUS. I want you to tell her sincerely 

and earnestly what you think about me. I 

want you to tell her that you can trust her to 

me—that is, if you feel you can. 

TANNER. I have no doubt that I can trust 

her to you. What worries me is the idea of 

trusting you to her. Have you read Maeterlinck’s 

book about the bee 

OCTAVIUS. [keeping his temper with difficulty] 

I am not discussing literature at 

present. 

TANNER. Be just a little patient with me. 

I am not discussing literature: the book about 

the bee is natural history. It’s an awful lesson 

to mankind. You think that you are 

Ann’s suitor; that you are the pursuer and 

she the pursued; that it is your part to woo, 

to persuade, to prevail, to overcome. Fool: 

it is you who are the pursued, the marked 

down quarry, the destined prey. You need not 

sit looking longingly at the bait through the 

wires of the trap: the door is open, and will 

remain so until it shuts behind you for ever. 

OCTAVIUS. I wish I could believe that, 

vilely as you put it. 

TANNER. Why, man, what other work has 

she in life but to get a husband It is a 

woman’s business to get married as soon as


possible, and a man’s to keep unmarried as 

long as he can. You have your poems and your 

tragedies to work at: Ann has nothing. 

OCTAVIUS. I cannot write without inspiration. 

And nobody can give me that except 

Ann. 

TANNER. Well, hadn’t you better get it 

from her at a safe distance Petrarch didn’t 

see half as much of Laura, nor Dante of Beatrice, 

as you see of Ann now; and yet they wrote 

first-rate poetry—at least so I’m told. They 

never exposed their idolatry to the test of domestic 

familiarity; and it lasted them to their 

graves. Marry Ann and at the end of a week 

you’ll find no more inspiration than in a plate 

of muffins. 

OCTAVIUS. You think I shall tire of her. 

TANNER. Not at all: you don’t get tired 

of muffins. But you don’t find inspiration in 

them; and you won’t in her when she ceases to 

be a poet’s dream and becomes a solid eleven 

stone wife. You’ll be forced to dream about 

somebody else; and then there will be a row. 

OCTAVIUS. This sort of talk is no use, 

Jack. You don’t understand. You have never 

been in love. 

TANNER. I! I have never been out of it. 

Why, I am in love even with Ann. But I am 

neither the slave of love nor its dupe. Go to 

the bee, thou poet: consider her ways and be 

wise. By Heaven, Tavy, if women could do 

without our work, and we ate their children’s 

bread instead of making it, they would kill us 

as the spider kills her mate or as the bees kill 

the drone. And they would be right if we were

ACT II 117 

good for nothing but love. 

OCTAVIUS. Ah, if we were only good 

enough for Love! There is nothing like Love: 

there is nothing else but Love: without it the 

world would be a dream of sordid horror. 

TANNER. And this—this is the man who 

asks me to give him the hand of my ward! 

Tavy: I believe we were changed in our cradles, 

and that you are the real descendant of 

Don Juan. 

OCTAVIUS. I beg you not to say anything 

like that to Ann. 

TANNER. Don’t be afraid. She has 

marked you for her own; and nothing will stop 

her now. You are doomed. [Straker comes back 

with a newspaper]. Here comes the New Man, 

demoralizing himself with a halfpenny paper 

as usual. 

STRAKER. Now, would you believe it: Mr. 

Robinson, when we’re out motoring we take 

in two papers, the Times for him, the Leader 

or the Echo for me. And do you think I ever 

see my paper Not much. He grabs the 

Leader and leaves me to stodge myself with 

his Times. 

OCTAVIUS. Are there no winners in the 

Times 

TANNER. Enry don’t old with bettin, Tavy. 

Motor records are his weakness. What’s the 

latest 

STRAKER. Paris to Biskra at forty mile an 

hour average, not countin the Mediterranean. 

TANNER. How many killed 

STRAKER. Two silly sheep. What does 

it matter Sheep don’t cost such a lot: they


were glad to ave the price without the trouble 

o sellin em to the butcher. All the same, 

d’y’see, there’ll be a clamor agin it presently; 

and then the French Government’ll stop it; an 

our chance will be gone see That what makes 

me fairly mad: Mr. Tanner won’t do a good run 

while he can. 

TANNER. Tavy: do you remember my uncle 

James 

OCTAVIUS. Yes. Why 

TANNER. Uncle James had a first rate 

cook: he couldn’t digest anything except what 

she cooked. Well, the poor man was shy 

and hated society. But his cook was proud 

of her skill, and wanted to serve up dinners 

to princes and ambassadors. To prevent her 

from leaving him, that poor old man had to 

give a big dinner twice a month, and suffer 

agonies of awkwardness. Now here am I; and 

here is this chap Enry Straker, the New Man. 

I loathe travelling; but I rather like Enry. 

He cares for nothing but tearing along in a 

leather coat and goggles, with two inches of 

dust all over him, at sixty miles an hour and 

the risk of his life and mine. Except, of course, 

when he is lying on his back in the mud under 

the machine trying to find out where it 

has given way. Well, if I don’t give him a 

thousand mile run at least once a fortnight I 

shall lose him. He will give me the sack and 

go to some American millionaire; and I shall 

have to put up with a nice respectful groomgardener-amateur, 

who will touch his hat and 

know his place. I am Enry’s slave, just as Uncle 

James was his cook’s slave.

ACT II 119 

STRAKER. [exasperated] Garn! I wish I 

had a car that would go as fast as you can talk, 

Mr. Tanner. What I say is that you lose money 

by a motor car unless you keep it workin. 

Might as well ave a pram and a nussmaid to 

wheel you in it as that car and me if you don’t 

git the last inch out of us both. 

TANNER. [soothingly] All right, Henry, all 

right. We’ll go out for half an hour presently. 

STRAKER. [in disgust] Arf an ahr! [He returns 

to his machine; seats himself in it; and 

turns up a fresh page of his paper in search of 

more news]. 

OCTAVIUS. Oh, that reminds me. I have 

a note for you from Rhoda. [He gives Tanner a 

note]. 

TANNER. [opening it] I rather think 

Rhoda is heading for a row with Ann. As 

a rule there is only one person an English 

girl hates more than she hates her mother; 

and that’s her eldest sister. But Rhoda positively 

prefers her mother to Ann. She— [indignantly] 

Oh, I say! 

OCTAVIUS. What’s the matter 

TANNER. Rhoda was to have come with 

me for a ride in the motor car. She says Ann 

has forbidden her to go out with me. 

Straker suddenly begins whistling his favorite 

air with remarkable deliberation. Surprised 

by this burst of larklike melody, and 

jarred by a sardonic note in its cheerfulness, 

they turn and look inquiringly at him. But he 

is busy with his paper; and nothing comes of 

their movement. 

OCTAVIUS. [recovering himself ] Does she


give any reason 

TANNER. Reason! An insult is not a reason. 

Ann forbids her to be alone with me on 

any occasion. Says I am not a fit person for a 

young girl to be with. What do you think of 

your paragon now 

OCTAVIUS. You must remember that she 

has a very heavy responsibility now that her 

father is dead. Mrs. Whitefield is too weak to 

control Rhoda. 

TANNER. [staring at him] In short, you 

agree with Ann. 

OCTAVIUS. No; but I think I understand 

her. You must admit that your views are 

hardly suited for the formation of a young 

girl’s mind and character. 

TANNER. I admit nothing of the sort. I admit 

that the formation of a young lady’s mind 

and character usually consists in telling her 

lies; but I object to the particular lie that I am 

in the habit of abusing the confidence of girls. 

OCTAVIUS. Ann doesn’t say that, Jack. 

TANNER. What else does she mean 

STRAKER. [catching sight of Ann coming 

from the house] Miss Whitefield, gentlemen. 

[He dismounts and strolls away down the avenue 

with the air of a man who knows he is no 

longer wanted]. 

ANN. [coming between Octavius and Tanner]. 

Good morning, Jack. I have come to 

tell you that poor Rhoda has got one of her 

headaches and cannot go out with you to-day 

in the car. It is a cruel disappointment to her, 

poor child! 

TANNER. What do you say now, Tavy,

ACT II 121 

OCTAVIUS. Surely you cannot misunderstand, 

Jack. Ann is showing you the kindest 

consideration, even at the cost of deceiving 

you. 

ANN. What do you mean 

TANNER. Would you like to cure Rhoda’s 

headache, Ann 

ANN. Of course. 

TANNER. Then tell her what you said just 

now; and add that you arrived about two minutes 

after I had received her letter and read 

it. 

ANN. Rhoda has written to you! 

TANNER. With full particulars. 

OCTAVIUS. Never mind him, Ann. You 

were right, quite right. Ann was only doing 

her duty, Jack; and you know it. Doing it in 

the kindest way, too. 

ANN. [going to Octavius] How kind you 

are, Tavy! How helpful! How well you understand! 

Octavius beams. 

TANNER. Ay: tighten the coils. You love 

her, Tavy, don’t you 

OCTAVIUS. She knows I do. 

ANN. Hush. For shame, Tavy! 

TANNER. Oh, I give you leave. I am your 

guardian; and I commit you to Tavy’s care for 

the next hour. 

ANN. No, Jack. I must speak to you about 

Rhoda. Ricky: will you go back to the house 

and entertain your American friend He’s 

rather on Mamma’s hands so early in the 

morning. She wants to finish her housekeeping.


OCTAVIUS. I fly, dearest Ann [he kisses 

her hand]. 

ANN. [tenderly] Ricky Ticky Tavy! 

He looks at her with an eloquent blush, and 

runs off. 

TANNER. [bluntly] Now look here, Ann. 

This time you’ve landed yourself; and if Tavy 

were not in love with you past all salvation 

he’d have found out what an incorrigible liar 

you are. 

ANN. You misunderstand, Jack. I didn’t 

dare tell Tavy the truth. 

TANNER. No: your daring is generally in 

the opposite direction. What the devil do you 

mean by telling Rhoda that I am too vicious 

to associate with her How can I ever have 

any human or decent relations with her again, 

now that you have poisoned her mind in that 

abominable way 

ANN. I know you are incapable of behaving 

badly. 

TANNER. Then why did you lie to her 

ANN. I had to. 

TANNER. Had to! 

ANN. Mother made me. 

TANNER. [his eye flashing] Ha! I might 

have known it. The mother! Always the 

mother! 

ANN. It was that dreadful book of yours. 

You know how timid mother is. All timid 

women are conventional: we must be conventional, 

Jack, or we are so cruelly, so vilely misunderstood. 

Even you, who are a man, cannot 

say what you think without being misunderstood 

and vilified—yes: I admit it: I have

ACT II 123 

had to vilify you. Do you want to have poor 

Rhoda misunderstood and vilified to the same 

way Would it be right for mother to let her 

expose herself to such treatment before she is 

old enough to judge for herself 

TANNER. In short, the way to avoid misunderstanding 

is for everybody to lie and slander 

and insinuate and pretend as hard as they 

can. That is what obeying your mother comes 

to. 

ANN. I love my mother, Jack. 

TANNER. [working himself up into a sociological 

rage] Is that any reason why you 

are not to call your soul your own Oh, I 

protest against this vile abjection of youth to 

age! look at fashionable society as you know 

it. What does it pretend to be An exquisite 

dance of nymphs. What is it A horrible procession 

of wretched girls, each in the claws of a 

cynical, cunning, avaricious, disillusioned, ignorantly 

experienced, foul-minded old woman 

whom she calls mother, and whose duty it 

is to corrupt her mind and sell her to the 

highest bidder. Why do these unhappy slaves 

marry anybody, however old and vile, sooner 

than not marry at all Because marriage is 

their only means of escape from these decrepit 

fiends who hide their selfish ambitions, their 

jealous hatreds of the young rivals who have 

supplanted them, under the mask of maternal 

duty and family affection. Such things are 

abominable: the voice of nature proclaims for 

the daughter a father’s care and for the son 

a mother’s. The law for father and son and 

mother and daughter is not the law of love:


it is the law of revolution, of emancipation, 

of final supersession of the old and worn-out 

by the young and capable. I tell you, the first 

duty of manhood and womanhood is a Declaration 

of Independence: the man who pleads 

his father’s authority is no man: the woman 

who pleads her mother’s authority is unfit to 

bear citizens to a free people. 

ANN. [watching him with quiet curiosity] 

I suppose you will go in seriously for politics 

some day, Jack. 

TANNER. [heavily let down] Eh What 

Wh— [Collecting his scattered wits] What 

has that got to do with what I have been saying 

ANN. You talk so well. 

TANNER. Talk! Talk! It means nothing to 

you but talk. Well, go back to your mother, 

and help her to poison Rhoda’s imagination 

as she has poisoned yours. It is the tame elephants 

who enjoy capturing the wild ones. 

ANN. I am getting on. Yesterday I was a 

boa constrictor: to-day I am an elephant. 

TANNER. Yes. So pack your trunk and begone; 

I have no more to say to you. 

ANN. You are so utterly unreasonable and 

impracticable. What can I do 

TANNER. Do! Break your chains. Go your 

way according to your own conscience and not 

according to your mother’s. Get your mind 

clean and vigorous; and learn to enjoy a fast 

ride in a motor car instead of seeing nothing 

in it but an excuse for a detestable intrigue. 

Come with me to Marseilles and across to Algiers 

and to Biskra, at sixty miles an hour.

ACT II 125 

Come right down to the Cape if you like. That 

will be a Declaration of Independence with a 

vengeance. You can write a book about it afterwards. 

That will finish your mother and 

make a woman of you. 

ANN. [thoughtfully] I don’t think there 

would be any harm in that, Jack. You are 

my guardian: you stand in my father’s place, 

by his own wish. Nobody could say a word 

against our travelling together. It would be 

delightful: thank you a thousand times, Jack. 

I’ll come. 

TANNER. [aghast] You’ll come!!! 

ANN. Of course. 

TANNER. But— [he stops, utterly appalled; 

then resumes feebly] No: look here, 

Ann: if there’s no harm in it there’s no point 

in doing it. 

ANN. How absurd you are! You don’t want 

to compromise me, do you 

TANNER. Yes: that’s the whole sense of 

my proposal. 

ANN. You are talking the greatest nonsense; 

and you know it. You would never do 

anything to hurt me. 

TANNER. Well, if you don’t want to be 

compromised, don’t come. 

ANN. [with simple earnestness] Yes, I will 

come, Jack, since you wish it. You are my 

guardian; and think we ought to see more 

of one another and come to know one another 

better. [Gratefully] It’s very thoughtful 

and very kind of you, Jack, to offer me this 

lovely holiday, especially after what I said 

about Rhoda. You really are good—much bet-


ter than you think. When do we start 

TANNER. But— 

The conversation is interrupted by the arrival 

of Mrs. Whitefield from the house. She is 

accompanied by the American gentleman, and 

followed by Ramsden and Octavius. 

Hector Malone is an Eastern American; but 

he is not at all ashamed of his nationality. 

This makes English people of fashion think 

well of him, as of a young fellow who is manly 

enough to confess to an obvious disadvantage 

without any attempt to conceal or extenuate 

it. They feel that he ought not to be made to 

suffer for what is clearly not his fault, and 

make a point of being specially kind to him. 

His chivalrous manners to women, and his elevated 

moral sentiments, being both gratuitous 

and unusual, strike them as being a little unfortunate; 

and though they find his vein of easy 

humor rather amusing when it has ceased to 

puzzle them (as it does at first), they have had 

to make him understand that he really must 

not tell anecdotes unless they are strictly personal 

and scandalous, and also that oratory is 

an accomplishment which belongs to a cruder 

stage of civilization than that in which his migration 

has landed him. On these points Hector 

is not quite convinced: he still thinks that 

the British are apt to make merits of their stupidities, 

and to represent their various incapacities 

as points of good breeding. English 

life seems to him to suffer from a lack of edifying 

rhetoric (which he calls moral tone); 

English behavior to show a want of respect 

for womanhood; English pronunciation to fail

ACT II 127 

very vulgarly in tackling such words as world, 

girl, bird, etc.; English society to be plain spoken 

to an extent which stretches occasionally 

to intolerable coarseness; and English intercourse 

to need enlivening by games and stories 

and other pastimes; so he does not feel called 

upon to acquire these defects after taking great 

paths to cultivate himself in a first rate manner 

before venturing across the Atlantic. To 

this culture he finds English people either totally 

indifferent as they very commonly are to 

all culture, or else politely evasive, the truth being 

that Hector’s culture is nothing but a state 

of saturation with our literary exports of thirty 

years ago, reimported by him to be unpacked 

at a moment’s notice and hurled at the head 

of English literature, science and art, at every 

conversational opportunity. The dismay set up 

by these sallies encourages him in his belief 

that he is helping to educate England. When 

he finds people chattering harmlessly about 

Anatole France and Nietzsche, he devastates 

them with Matthew Arnold, the Autocrat of the 

Breakfast Table, and even Macaulay; and as 

he is devoutly religious at bottom, he first leads 

the unwary, by humorous irreverences, to wave 

popular theology out of account in discussing 

moral questions with him, and then scatters 

them in confusion by demanding whether the 

carrying out of his ideals of conduct was not 

the manifest object of God Almighty in creating 

honest men and pure women. The engaging 

freshness of his personality and the dumbfoundering 

staleness of his culture make it extremely 

difficult to decide whether he is worth


knowing; for whilst his company is undeniably 

pleasant and enlivening, there is intellectually 

nothing new to be got out of him, especially as 

he despises politics, and is careful not to talk 

commercial shop, in which department he is 

probably much in advance of his English capitalist 

friends. He gets on best with romantic 

Christians of the amoristic sect: hence the 

friendship which has sprung up between him 

and Octavius. 

In appearance Hector is a neatly built 

young man of twenty-four, with a short, 

smartly trimmed black beard, clear, well 

shaped eyes, and an ingratiating vivacity of 

expression. He is, from the fashionable point 

of view, faultlessly dressed. As he comes along 

the drive from the house with Mrs. Whitefield 

he is sedulously making himself agreeable and 

entertaining, and thereby placing on her slender 

wit a burden it is unable to bear. An Englishman 

would let her alone, accepting boredom 

and indifference of their common lot; and 

the poor lady wants to be either let alone or let 

prattle about the things that interest her. 

Ramsden strolls over to inspect the motor 

car. Octavius joins Hector. 

ANN. [pouncing on her mother joyously] 

Oh, mamma, what do you think! Jack is going 

to take me to Nice in his motor car. Isn’t it 

lovely I am the happiest person in London. 

TANNER. [desperately] Mrs. Whitefield 

objects. I am sure she objects. Doesn’t she, 

Ramsden 

RAMSDEN. I should think it very likely indeed.

ACT II 129 

ANN. You don’t object, do you, mother 

MRS WHITEFIELD. I object! Why should 

I I think it will do you good, Ann. [Trotting 

over to Tanner] I meant to ask you to take 

Rhoda out for a run occasionally: she is too 

much in the house; but it will do when you 

come back. 

TANNER. Abyss beneath abyss of perfidy! 

ANN. [hastily, to distract attention from 

this outburst] Oh, I forgot: you have not met 

Mr. Malone. Mr. Tanner, my guardian: Mr. 

Hector Malone. 

HECTOR. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Tanner. 

I should like to suggest an extension of 

the travelling party to Nice, if I may. 

ANN. Oh, we’re all coming. That’s understood, 

isn’t it 

HECTOR. I also am the modest possessor 

of a motor car. If Miss Robinson will allow me 

the privilege of taking her, my car is at her 

service. 

OCTAVIUS. Violet! 

General constraint. 

ANN. [subduedly] Come, mother: we must 

leave them to talk over the arrangements. I 

must see to my travelling kit. 

Mrs. Whitefield looks bewildered; but Ann 

draws her discreetly away; and they disappear 

round the corner towards the house. 

HECTOR. I think I may go so far as to say 

that I can depend on Miss Robinson’s consent. 

Continued embarrassment. 

OCTAVIUS. I’m afraid we must leave Violet 

behind, There are circumstances which 

make it impossible for her to come on such an


expedition. 

HECTOR. [amused and not at all convinced] 

Too American, eh Must the young 

lady have a chaperone 

OCTAVIUS. It’s not that, Malone—at least 

not altogether. 

HECTOR. Indeed! May I ask what other 

objection applies 

TANNER. [impatiently] Oh, tell him, tell 

him. We shall never be able to keep the secret 

unless everybody knows what it is. Mr. Malone: 

if you go to Nice with Violet, you go with 

another man’s wife. She is married. 

HECTOR. [thunderstruck] You don’t tell 

me so! 

TANNER. We do. In confidence. 

RAMSDEN. [with an air of importance, 

lest Malone should suspect a misalliance] Her 

marriage has not yet been made known: she 

desires that it shall not be mentioned for the 

present. 

HECTOR. I shall respect the lady’s wishes. 

Would it be indiscreet to ask who her husband 

is, in case I should have an opportunity of consulting 

him about this trip 

TANNER. We don’t know who he is. 

HECTOR. [retiring into his shell in a very 

marked manner] In that case, I have no more 

to say. 

They become more embarrassed than ever. 

OCTAVIUS. You must think this very 

strange. 

HECTOR. A little singular. Pardon me for 

saving so. 

RAMSDEN. [half apologetic, half huffy]

ACT II 131 

The young lady was married secretly; and her 

husband has forbidden her, it seems, to declare 

his name. It is only right to tell you, 

since you are interested in Miss—er—in Violet. 

OCTAVIUS. [sympathetically] I hope this 

is not a disappointment to you. 

HECTOR. [softened, coming out of his shell 

again] Well it is a blow. I can hardly understand 

how a man can leave a wife in such a 

position. Surely it’s not customary. It’s not 

manly. It’s not considerate. 

OCTAVIUS. We feel that, as you may 

imagine, pretty deeply. 

RAMSDEN. [testily] It is some young fool 

who has not enough experience to know what 

mystifications of this kind lead to. 

HECTOR. [with strong symptoms of moral 

repugnance] I hope so. A man need be very 

young and pretty foolish too to be excused for 

such conduct. You take a very lenient view, 

Mr. Ramsden. Too lenient to my mind. Surely 

marriage should ennoble a man. 

TANNER. [sardonically] Ha! 

HECTOR. Am I to gather from that cacchination 

that you don’t agree with me, Mr. Tanner 

TANNER. [drily] Get married and try. You 

may find it delightful for a while: you certainly 

won’t find it ennobling. The greatest common 

measure of a man and a woman is not necessarily 

greater than the man’s single measure. 

HECTOR. Well, we think in America that 

a woman’s moral number is higher than a 

man’s, and that the purer nature of a woman


lifts a man right out of himself, and makes 

him better than he was. 

OCTAVIUS. [with conviction] So it does. 

TANNER. No wonder American women 

prefer to live in Europe! It’s more comfortable 

than standing all their lives on an altar 

to be worshipped. Anyhow, Violet’s husband 

has not been ennobled. So what’s to be done 

HECTOR. [shaking his head] I can’t dismiss 

that man’s conduct as lightly as you do, 

Mr. Tanner. However, I’ll say no more. Whoever 

he is, he’s Miss Robinson’s husband; and 

I should be glad for her sake to think better of 

him. 

OCTAVIUS. [touched; for he divines a secret 

sorrow] I’m very sorry, Malone. Very 

sorry. 

HECTOR. [gratefully] You’re a good fellow, 

Robinson, Thank you. 

TANNER. Talk about something else. Violet’s 

coming from the house. 

HECTOR. I should esteem it a very great 

favor, men, if you would take the opportunity 

to let me have a few words with the lady alone. 

I shall have to cry off this trip; and it’s rather 

a delicate— 

RAMSDEN. [glad to escape] Say no more. 

Come Tanner, Come, Tavy. [He strolls away 

into the park with Octavius and Tanner, past 

the motor car]. 

Violet comes down the avenue to Hector. 

VIOLET. Are they looking 

HECTOR. No. 

She kisses him.

ACT II 133 

VIOLET. Have you been telling lies for my 

sake 

HECTOR. Lying! Lying hardly describes 

it. I overdo it. I get carried away in an ecstasy 

of mendacity. Violet: I wish you’d let me own 

up. 

VIOLET. [instantly becoming serious and 

resolute] No, no. Hector: you promised me not 

to. 

HECTOR. I’ll keep my promise until you 

release me from it. But I feel mean, lying to 

those men, and denying my wife. Just dastardly. 

VIOLET. I wish your father were not so unreasonable. 

HECTOR. He’s not unreasonable. He’s 

right from his point of view. He has a prejudice 

against the English middle class. 

VIOLET. It’s too ridiculous. You know how 

I dislike saying such things to you, Hector; but 

if I were to—oh, well, no matter. 

HECTOR. I know. If you were to marry the 

son of an English manufacturer of office furniture, 

your friends would consider it a misalliance. 

And here’s my silly old dad, who is 

the biggest office furniture man in the world, 

would show me the door for marrying the 

most perfect lady in England merely because 

she has no handle to her name. Of course it’s 

just absurd. But I tell you, Violet, I don’t like 

deceiving him. I feel as if I was stealing his 

money. Why won’t you let me own up 

VIOLET. We can’t afford it. You can be as 

romantic as you please about love, Hector; but 

you mustn’t be romantic about money.


HECTOR. [divided between his uxoriousness 

and his habitual elevation of moral sentiment] 

That’s very English. [Appealing to her 

impulsively] Violet: Dad’s bound to find us out 

some day. 

VIOLET. Oh yes, later on of course. But 

don’t let’s go over this every time we meet, 

dear. You promised— 

HECTOR. All right, all right, I— 

VIOLET. [not to be silenced] It is I and not 

you who suffer by this concealment; and as to 

facing a struggle and poverty and all that sort 

of thing I simply will not do it. It’s too silly. 

HECTOR. You shall not. I’ll sort of borrow 

the money from my dad until I get on my own 

feet; and then I can own up and pay up at the 

same time. 

VIOLET. [alarmed and indignant] Do you 

mean to work Do you want to spoil our marriage 

HECTOR. Well, I don’t mean to let marriage 

spoil my character. Your friend Mr. Tanner 

has got the laugh on me a bit already 

about that; and— 

VIOLET. The beast! I hate Jack Tanner. 

HECTOR. [magnanimously] Oh, he’s all 

right: he only needs the love of a good woman 

to ennoble him. Besides, he’s proposed a motoring 

trip to Nice; and I’m going to take you. 

VIOLET. How jolly! 

HECTOR. Yes; but how are we going to 

manage You see, they’ve warned me off going 

with you, so to speak. They’ve told me in 

confidence that you’re married. That’s just the 

most overwhelming confidence I’ve ever been

ACT II 135 

honored with. 

Tanner returns with Straker, who goes to 

his car. 

TANNER. Your car is a great success, Mr. 

Malone. Your engineer is showing it off to Mr. 

Ramsden. 

HECTOR. [eagerly — forgetting himself ] 

Let’s come, Vi. 

VIOLET. [coldly, warning him with her 

eyes] I beg your pardon, Mr. Malone, I did not 

quite catch— 

HECTOR. [recollecting himself ] I ask to be 

allowed the pleasure of showing you my little 

American steam car, Miss Robinson. 

VIOLET. I shall be very pleased. [They go 

off together down the avenue]. 

TANNER. About this trip, Straker. 

STRAKER. [preoccupied with the car] Yes 

TANNER. Miss Whitefield is supposed to 

be coming with me. 

STRAKER. So I gather. 

TANNER. Mr. Robinson is to be one of the 

party. 

STRAKER. Yes. 

TANNER. Well, if you can manage so as 

to be a good deal occupied with me, and leave 

Mr. Robinson a good deal occupied with Miss 

Whitefield, he will be deeply grateful to you. 

STRAKER. [looking round at him] Evidently. 

TANNER. “Evidently”! Your grandfather 

would have simply winked. 

STRAKER. My grandfather would have 

touched his at.


TANNER. And I should have given your 

good nice respectful grandfather a sovereign. 

STRAKER. Five shillins, more likely. [He 

leaves the car and approaches Tanner]. What 

about the lady’s views 

TANNER. She is just as willing to be left 

to Mr. Robinson as Mr. Robinson is to be left 

to her. [Straker looks at his principal with 

cool scepticism; then turns to the car whistling 

his favorite air]. Stop that aggravating noise. 

What do you mean by it [Straker calmly resumes 

the melody and finishes it. Tanner politely 

hears it out before he again addresses 

Straker, this time with elaborate seriousness]. 

Enry: I have ever been a warm advocate of 

the spread of music among the masses; but I 

object to your obliging the company whenever 

Miss Whitefield’s name is mentioned. You did 

it this morning, too. 

STRAKER. [obstinately] It’s not a bit o use. 

Mr. Robinson may as well give it up first as 

last. 

TANNER. Why 

STRAKER. Garn! You know why. Course 

it’s not my business; but you needn’t start kiddin 

me about it. 

TANNER. I am not kidding. I don’t know 

why. 

STRAKER. [Cheerfully sulky] Oh, very 

well. All right. It ain’t my business. 

TANNER. [impressively] I trust, Enry, 

that, as between employer and engineer, I 

shall always know how to keep my proper 

distance, and not intrude my private affairs 

on you. Even our business arrangements are

ACT II 137 

subject to the approval of your Trade Union. 

But don’t abuse your advantages. Let me remind 

you that Voltaire said that what was too 

silly to be said could be sung. 

STRAKER. It wasn’t Voltaire: it was Bow 

Mar Shay. 

TANNER. I stand corrected: Beaumarchais 

of course. Now you seem to think that 

what is too delicate to be said can be whistled. 

Unfortunately your whistling, though melodious, 

is unintelligible. Come! there’s nobody 

listening: neither my genteel relatives nor the 

secretary of your confounded Union. As man 

to man, Enry, why do you think that my friend 

has no chance with Miss Whitefield 

STRAKER. Cause she’s arter summun 

else. 

TANNER. Bosh! who else 

STRAKER. You. 

TANNER. Me!!! 

STRAKER. Mean to tell me you didn’t 

know Oh, come, Mr. Tanner! 

TANNER. [in fierce earnest] Are you playing 

the fool, or do you mean it 

STRAKER. [with a flash of temper] I’m not 

playin no fool. [More coolly] Why, it’s as plain 

as the nose on your face. If you ain’t spotted 

that, you don’t know much about these sort of 

things. [Serene again] Ex-cuse me, you know, 

Mr. Tanner; but you asked me as man to man; 

and I told you as man to man. 

TANNER. [wildly appealing to the heavens] 

Then I—I am the bee, the spider, the 

marked down victim, the destined prey. 

STRAKER. I dunno about the bee and the


spider. But the marked down victim, that’s 

what you are and no mistake; and a jolly good 

job for you, too, I should say. 

TANNER. [momentously] Henry Straker: 

the moment of your life has arrived. 

STRAKER. What d’y’mean 

TANNER. That record to Biskra. 

STRAKER. [eagerly] Yes 

TANNER. Break it. 

STRAKER. [rising to the height of his destiny] 

D’y’mean it 

TANNER. I do. 

STRAKER. When 

TANNER. Now. Is that machine ready to 

start 

STRAKER. [quailing] But you can’t— 

TANNER. [cutting him short by getting 

into the car] Off we go. First to the bank for 

money; then to my rooms for my kit; then 

to your rooms for your kit; then break the 

record from London to Dover or Folkestone; 

then across the channel and away like mad 

to Marseilles, Gibraltar, Genoa, any port from 

which we can sail to a Mahometan country 

where men are protected from women. 

STRAKER. Garn! you’re kiddin. 

TANNER. [resolutely] Stay behind then. If 

you won’t come I’ll do it alone. [He starts the 

motor]. 

STRAKER. [running after him] Here! Mister! 

arf a mo! steady on! [he scrambles in as 

the car plunges forward].

ACT III 

Evening in the Sierra Nevada. Rolling slopes 

of brown, with olive trees instead of apple 

trees in the cultivated patches, and occasional 

prickly pears instead of gorse and bracken in 

the wilds. Higher up, tall stone peaks and 

precipices, all handsome and distinguished. 

No wild nature here: rather a most aristocratic 

mountain landscape made by a fastidious 

artist-creator. No vulgar profusion of vegetation: 

even a touch of aridity in the frequent 

patches of stones: Spanish magnificence and 

Spanish economy everywhere. 

Not very far north of a spot at which the 

high road over one of the passes crosses a tunnel 

on the railway from Malaga to Granada, 

is one of the mountain amphitheatres of the 

Sierra. Looking at it from the wide end of 

the horse-shoe, one sees, a little to the right, 

in the face of the cliff, a romantic cave which 

is really an abandoned quarry, and towards 

the left a little hill, commanding a view of 

the road, which skirts the amphitheatre on the 

left, maintaining its higher level on embankments 

and on an occasional stone arch. On 

the hill, watching the road, is a man who is 

139


either a Spaniard or a Scotchman. Probably 

a Spaniard, since he wears the dress of a 

Spanish goatherd and seems at home in the 

Sierra Nevada, but very like a Scotchman for 

all that. In the hollow, on the slope leading 

to the quarry-cave, are about a dozen men 

who, as they recline at their cave round a heap 

of smouldering white ashes of dead leaf and 

brushwood, have an air of being conscious of 

themselves as picturesque scoundrels honoring 

the Sierra by using it as an effective pictorial 

background. As a matter of artistic fact 

they are not picturesque; and the mountains 

tolerate them as lions tolerate lice. An English 

policeman or Poor Law Guardian would recognize 

them as a selected band of tramps and 

ablebodied paupers. 

This description of them is not wholly contemptuous. 

Whoever has intelligently observed 

the tramp, or visited the ablebodied ward of 

a workhouse, will admit that our social failures 

are not all drunkards and weaklings. 

Some of them are men who do not fit the class 

they were born into. Precisely the same qualities 

that make the educated gentleman an 

artist may make an uneducated manual laborer 

an ablebodied pauper. There are men 

who fall helplessly into the workhouse because 

they are good far nothing; but there are also 

men who are there because they are strongminded 

enough to disregard the social convention 

(obviously not a disinterested one on the 

part of the ratepayer) which bids a man live 

by heavy and badly paid drudgery when he 

has the alternative of walking into the work-

ACT III 141 

house, announcing himself as a destitute person, 

and legally compelling the Guardians to 

feed, clothe and house him better than he could 

feed, clothe and house himself without great 

exertion. When a man who is born a poet 

refuses a stool in a stockbroker’s office, and 

starves in a garret, spunging on a poor landlady 

or on his friends and relatives rather than 

work against his grain; or when a lady, because 

she is a lady, will face any extremity of 

parasitic dependence rather than take a situation 

as cook or parlormaid, we make large 

allowances for them. To such allowances the 

ablebodied pauper and his nomadic variant 

the tramp are equally entitled. 

Further, the imaginative man, if his life is 

to be tolerable to him, must have leisure to tell 

himself stories, and a position which lends itself 

to imaginative decoration. The ranks of 

unskilled labor offer no such positions. We 

misuse our laborers horribly; and when a man 

refuses to be misused, we have no right to say 

that he is refusing honest work. Let us be frank 

in this matter before we go on with our play; so 

that we may enjoy it without hypocrisy. If we 

were reasoning, farsighted people, four fifths 

of us would go straight to the Guardians for 

relief, and knock the whole social system to 

pieces with most beneficial reconstructive results. 

The reason we do got do this is because 

we work like bees or ants, by instinct or habit, 

not reasoning about the matter at all. Therefore 

when a man comes along who can and 

does reason, and who, applying the Kantian 

test to his conduct, can truly say to us, If ev-


erybody did as I do, the world would be compelled 

to reform itself industrially, and abolish 

slavery and squalor, which exist only because 

everybody does as you do, let us honor 

that man and seriously consider the advisability 

of following his example. Such a man is 

the able-bodied, able-minded pauper. Were he 

a gentleman doing his best to get a pension 

or a sinecure instead of sweeping a crossing, 

nobody would blame him; for deciding that 

so long as the alternative lies between living 

mainly at the expense of the community and 

allowing the community to live mainly at his, 

it would be folly to accept what is to him personally 

the greater of the two evils. 

We may therefore contemplate the tramps of 

the Sierra without prejudice, admitting cheerfully 

that our objects—briefly, to be gentlemen 

of fortune—-are much the same as theirs, and 

the difference in our position and methods 

merely accidental. One or two of them, perhaps, 

it would be wiser to kill without malice 

in a friendly and frank manner; for there 

are bipeds, just as there are quadrupeds, who 

are too dangerous to be left unchained and unmuzzled; 

and these cannot fairly expect to have 

other men’s lives wasted in the work of watching 

them. But as society has not the courage to 

kill them, and, when it catches them, simply 

wreaks on them some superstitious expiatory 

rites of torture and degradation, and than lets 

them loose with heightened qualifications for 

mischief; it is just as well that they are at large 

in the Sierra, and in the hands of a chief who 

looks as if he might possibly, on provocation,

ACT III 143 

order them to be shot. 

This chief, seated in the centre of the group 

on a squared block of stone from the quarry, 

is a tall strong man, with a striking cockatoo 

nose, glossy black hair, pointed beard, upturned 

moustache, and a Mephistophelean affectation 

which is fairly imposing, perhaps because 

the scenery admits of a larger swagger 

than Piccadilly, perhaps because of a certain 

sentimentality in the man which gives 

him that touch of grace which alone can excuse 

deliberate picturesqueness. His eyes and 

mouth are by no means rascally; he has a fine 

voice and a ready wit; and whether he is really 

the strongest man in the party, or not, 

he looks it. He is certainly, the best fed, the 

best dressed, and the best trained. The fact 

that he speaks English is not unexpected in 

spite of the Spanish landscape; for with the 

exception of one man who might be guessed 

as a bullfighter ruined by drink and one unmistakable 

Frenchman, they are all cockney 

or American; therefore, in a land of cloaks 

and sombreros, they mostly wear seedy overcoats, 

woollen mufflers, hard hemispherical 

hats, and dirty brown gloves. Only a very 

few dress after their leader, whose broad sombrero 

with a cock’s feather in the band, and voluminous 

cloak descending to his high boots, 

are as un-English as possible. None of them 

are armed; and the ungloved ones keep their 

hands in their pockets because it is their national 

belief that it must be dangerously cold 

in the open air with the night coming on. (It 

is as warm an evening as any reasonable man


could desire). 

Except the bullfighting inebriate there is 

only one person in the company who looks 

more than, say, thirty-three. He is a small man 

with reddish whiskers, weak eyes, and the anxious 

look of a small tradesman in difficulties. 

He wears the only tall hat visible: it shines in 

the sunset with the sticky glow of some sixpenny 

patent hat reviver, often applied and 

constantly tending to produce a worse state of 

the original surface than the ruin it was applied 

to remedy. He has a collar and cuff of 

celluloid; and his brown Chesterfield overcoat, 

with velvet collar, is still presentable. He is 

pre-eminently the respectable man of the party, 

and is certainly over forty, possibly over fifty. 

He is the corner man on the leader’s right, opposite 

three men in scarlet ties on his left. One 

of these three is the Frenchman. Of the remaining 

two, who are both English, one is argumentative, 

solemn, and obstinate; the other rowdy 

and mischievious. 

The chief, with a magnificent fling of the 

end of his cloak across his left shoulder, rises 

to address them. The applause which greets 

him shows that he is a favorite orator. 

THE CHIEF. Friends and fellow brigands. 

I have a proposal to make to this meeting. 

We have now spent three evenings in 

discussing the question Have Anarchists or 

Social-Democrats the most personal courage 

We have gone into the principles of Anarchism 

and Social-Democracy at great length. The 

cause of Anarchy has been ably represented 

by our one Anarchist, who doesn’t know what

ACT III 145 

Anarchism means [laughter]— 

THE ANARCHIST. [rising] A point of order, 

Mendoza— 

MENDOZA. [forcibly] No, by thunder: your 

last point of order took half an hour. Besides, 

Anarchists don’t believe in order. 

THE ANARCHIST. [mild, polite but persistent: 

he is, in fact, the respectable looking 

elderly man in the celluloid collar and cuffs] 

That is a vulgar error. I can prove— 

MENDOZA. Order, order. 

THE OTHERS [shouting] Order, order. Sit 

down. Chair! Shut up. 

The Anarchist is suppressed. 

MENDOZA. On the other hand we have 

three Social-Democrats among us. They are 

not on speaking terms; and they have put before 

us three distinct and incompatible views 

of Social-Democracy. 

THE MAJORITY. [shouting assent] Hear, 

hear! So we are. Right. 

THE ROWDY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. 

[smarting under oppression] You ain’t no 

Christian. You’re a Sheeny, you are. 

MENDOZA. [with crushing magnanimity] 

My friend; I am an exception to all rules. It 

is true that I have the honor to be a Jew; and, 

when the Zionists need a leader to reassemble 

our race on its historic soil of Palestine, Mendoza 

will not be the last to volunteer [sympathetic 

applause—hear, hear, etc.]. But I am 

not a slave to any superstition. I have swallowed 

all the formulas, even that of Socialism; 

though, in a sense, once a Socialist, always a 

Socialist.


THE SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS. Hear, hear! 

MENDOZA. But I am well aware that 

the ordinary man—even the ordinary brigand, 

who can scarcely be called an ordinary 

man [Hear, hear!]—is not a philosopher. Common 

sense is good enough for him; and in our 

business affairs common sense is good enough 

for me. Well, what is our business here in 

the Sierra Nevada, chosen by the Moors as 

the fairest spot in Spain Is it to discuss abstruse 

questions of political economy No: it 

is to hold up motor cars and secure a more equitable 

distribution of wealth. 

THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. All 

made by labor, mind you. 

MENDOZA. [urbanely] Undoubtedly. All 

made by labor, and on its way to be squandered 

by wealthy vagabonds in the dens of 

vice that disfigure the sunny shores of the 

Mediterranean. We intercept that wealth. 

We restore it to circulation among the class 

that produced it and that chiefly needs it—the 

working class. We do this at the risk of 

our lives and liberties, by the exercise of the 

virtues of courage, endurance, foresight, and 

abstinence—especially abstinence. I myself 

have eaten nothing but prickly pears and 

broiled rabbit for three days. 

THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. 

[Stubbornly] No more ain’t we. 

MENDOZA. [indignantly] Have I taken 

more than my share 

THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [unmoved] 

Why should you 

THE ANARCHIST. Why should he not To

ACT III 147 

each according to his needs: from each according 

to his means. 

THE FRENCHMAN. [shaking his fist at 

the anarchist] Fumiste! 

MENDOZA. [diplomatically] I agree with 

both of you. 

THE GENUINELY ENGLISH BRIG- 

ANDS. Hear, hear! Bravo, Mendoza! 

MENDOZA. What I say is, let us treat one 

another as gentlemen, and strive to excel in 

personal courage only when we take the field. 

THE ROWDY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [derisively] 

Shikespear. 

A whistle comes from the goatherd on the 

hill. He springs up and points excitedly forward 

along the road to the north. 

THE GOATHERD. Automobile! Automobile! 

[He rushes down the hill and joins the 

rest, who all scramble to their feet]. 

MENDOZA. [in ringing tones] To arms! 

Who has the gun 

THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. 

[handing a rifle to Mendoza] Here. 

MENDOZA. Have the nails been strewn in 

the road 

THE ROWDY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. Two 

ahnces of em. 

MENDOZA. Good! [To the Frenchman] 

With me, Duval. If the nails fail, puncture 

their tires with a bullet. [He gives the rifle to 

Duval, who follows him up the hill. Mendoza 

produces an opera glass. The others hurry 

across to the road and disappear to the north]. 

MENDOZA. [on the hill, using his glass] 

Two only, a capitalist and his chauffeur. They


look English. 

DUVAL. Angliche! Aoh yess. Cochons! 

[Handling the rifle] Faut tire, n’est-ce-pas 

MENDOZA. No: the nails have gone home. 

Their tire is down: they stop. 

DUVAL. [shouting to the others] Fondez 

sur eux, nom de Dieu! 

MENDOZA. [rebuking his excitement] Du 

calme, Duval: keep your hair on. They take it 

quietly. Let us descend and receive them. 

Mendoza descends, passing behind the 

fire and coming forward, whilst Tanner and 

Straker, in their motoring goggles, leather 

coats, and caps, are led in from the road by 

brigands. 

TANNER. Is this the gentleman you describe 

as your boss Does he speak English 


Course he does. Y’don’t suppowz we Hinglishmen 

lets ahrselves be bossed by a bloomin 

Spenniard, do you 

MENDOZA. [with dignity] Allow me to introduce 

myself: Mendoza, President of the 

League of the Sierra! [Posing loftily] I am a 

brigand: I live by robbing the rich. 

TANNER. [promptly] I am a gentleman: I 

live by robbing the poor. Shake hands. 

THE ENGLISH SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS. 

Hear, hear! 

General laughter and good humor. Tanner 

and Mendoza shake hands. 

The Brigands drop into their former places. 

STRAKER. Ere! where do I come in 

TANNER. [introducing] My friend and 

chauffeur.

ACT III 149 

THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [suspiciously] 

Well, which is he friend or showfoor 

It makes all the difference you know. 

MENDOZA. [explaining] We should expect 

ransom for a friend. A professional chauffeur 

is free of the mountains. He even takes a trifling 

percentage of his principal’s ransom if he 

will honor us by accepting it. 

STRAKER. I see. Just to encourage me to 

come this way again. Well, I’ll think about it. 

DUVAL. [impulsively rushing across to 

Straker] Mon frère! [He embraces him rapturously 

and kisses him on both cheeks]. 

STRAKER. [disguested] Ere, git out: don’t 

be silly. Who are you, pray 

DUVAL. Duval: Social-Democrat. 

STRAKER. Oh, you’re a Social-Democrat, 

are you 

THE ANARCHIST. He means that he has 

sold out to the parliamentary humbugs and 

the bourgeoisie. Compromise! that is his faith. 

DUVAL. [furiously] I understand what he 

say. He say Bourgeois. He say Compromise. 

Jamais de la vie! Miserable menteur— 

STRAKER. See here, Captain Mendoza, 

ow much o this sort o thing do you put up 

with here Are we avin a pleasure trip in the 

mountains, or are we at a Socialist meetin 

THE MAJORITY. Hear, hear! Shut up. 

Chuck it. Sit down, etc. etc. [The Social- 

Democrats and the Anarchist are hurtled into 

the background. Straker, after superintending 

this proceeding with satisfaction, places 

himself on Mendoza’s left, Tanner being on his 

right].


MENDOZA. Can we offer you anything 

Broiled rabbit and prickly pears— 

TANNER. Thank you: we have dined. 

MENDOZA. [to his followers] Gentlemen: 

business is over for the day. Go as you please 

until morning. 

The Brigands disperse into groups lazily. 

Some go into the cave. Others sit down or lie 

down to sleep in the open. A few produce a 

pack of cards and move off towards the road; 

for it is now starlight; and they know that motor 

cars have lamps which can be turned to account 

for lighting a card party. 

STRAKER. [calling after them] Don’t none 

of you go fooling with that car, d’ye hear 

MENDOZA. No fear, Monsieur lé Chauffeur. 

The first one we captured cured us of 

that. 

STRAKER. [interested] What did it do 

MENDOZA. It carried three brave comrades 

of ours, who did not know how to stop 

it, into Granada, and capsized them opposite 

the police station. Since then we never touch 

one without sending for the chauffeur. Shall 

we chat at our ease 

TANNER. By all means. 

Tanner, Mendoza, and Straker sit down on 

the turf by the fire. Mendoza delicately waives 

his presidential dignity, of which the right to 

sit on the squared stone block is the appanage, 

by sitting on the ground like his guests, and 

using the stone only as a support for his back. 

MENDOZA. It is the custom in Spain always 

to put off business until to-morrow. In 

fact, you have arrived out of office hours. How-

ACT III 151 

ever, if you would prefer to settle the question 

of ransom at once, I am at your service. 

TANNER. To-morrow will do for me. I am 

rich enough to pay anything in reason. 

MENDOZA. [respectfully, much struck by 

this admission] You are a remarkable man, 

sir. Our guests usually describe themselves 

as miserably poor. 

TANNER. Pooh! Miserably poor people 

don’t own motor cars. 

MENDOZA. Precisely what we say to 

them. 

TANNER. Treat us well: we shall not 

prove ungrateful. 

STRAKER. No prickly pears and broiled 

rabbits, you know. Don’t tell me you can’t do 

us a bit better than that if you like. 

MENDOZA. Wine, kids, milk, cheese and 

bread can be procured for ready money. 

STRAKER. [graciously] Now you’re talking. 

TANNER. Are you all Socialists here, may 

I ask 

MENDOZA. [repudiating this humiliating 

misconception] Oh no, no, no: nothing of the 

kind, I assure you. We naturally have modern 

views as to the justice of the existing distribution 

of wealth: otherwise we should lose our 

self-respect. But nothing that you could take 

exception to, except two or three faddists. 

TANNER. I had no intention of suggesting 

anything discreditable. In fact, I am a bit of a 

Socialist myself. 

STRAKER. [drily] Most rich men are, I notice.


MENDOZA. Quite so. It has reached us, I 

admit. It is in the air of the century. 

STRAKER. Socialism must be looking up a 

bit if your chaps are taking to it. 

MENDOZA. That is true, sir. A movement 

which is confined to philosophers and honest 

men can never exercise any real political influence: 

there are too few of them. Until a 

movement shows itself capable of spreading 

among brigands, it can never hope for a political 

majority. 

TANNER. But are your brigands any less 

honest than ordinary citizens 

MENDOZA. Sir: I will be frank with you. 

Brigandage is abnormal. Abnormal professions 

attract two classes: those who are not 

good enough for ordinary bourgeois life and 

those who are too good for it. We are dregs 

and scum, sir: the dregs very filthy, the scum 

very superior. 

STRAKER. Take care! some o the dregs’ll 

hear you. 

MENDOZA. It does not matter: each brigand 

thinks himself scum, and likes to hear the 

others called dregs. 

TANNER. Come! you are a wit. [Mendoza 

inclines his head, flattered]. May one ask you 

a blunt question 

MENDOZA. As blunt as you please. 

TANNER. How does it pay a man of your 

talent to shepherd such a flock as this on 

broiled rabbit and prickly pears I have seen 

men less gifted, and I’ll swear less honest, 

supping at the Savoy on foie gras and champagne.

ACT III 153 

MENDOZA. Pooh! they have all had their 

turn at the broiled rabbit, just as I shall have 

my turn at the Savoy. Indeed, I have had a 

turn there already—as waiter. 

TANNER. A waiter! You astonish me! 

MENDOZA. [reflectively] Yes: I, Mendoza 

of the Sierra, was a waiter. Hence, perhaps, 

my cosmopolitanism. [With sudden intensity] 

Shall I tell you the story of my life 

STRAKER. [apprehensively] If it ain’t too 

long, old chap— 

TANNER. [interrupting him] Tsh-sh: you 

are a Philistine, Henry: you have no romance 

in you. [To Mendoza] You interest me extremely, 

President. Never mind Henry: he can 

go to sleep. 

MENDOZA. The woman I loved— 

STRAKER. Oh, this is a love story, is it 

Right you are. Go on: I was only afraid you 

were going to talk about yourself. 

MENDOZA. Myself! I have thrown myself 

away for her sake: that is why I am here. No 

matter: I count the world well lost for her. She 

had, I pledge you my word, the most magnificent 

head of hair I ever saw. She had humor; 

she had intellect; she could cook to perfection; 

and her highly strung temperament made her 

uncertain, incalculable, variable, capricious, 

cruel, in a word, enchanting. 

STRAKER. A six shillin novel sort o 

woman, all but the cookin. Er name was Lady 

Gladys Plantagenet, wasn’t it 

MENDOZA. No, sir: she was not an earl’s 

daughter. Photography, reproduced by the 

half-tone process, has made me familiar with


the appearance of the daughters of the English 

peerage; and I can honestly say that 

I would have sold the lot, faces, dowries, 

clothes, titles, and all, for a smile from this 

woman. Yet she was a woman of the people, 

a worker: otherwise—let me reciprocate your 

bluntness—I should have scorned her. 

TANNER. Very properly. And did she respond 

to your love 

MENDOZA. Should I be here if she did 

She objected to marry a Jew. 

TANNER. On religious grounds 

MENDOZA. No: she was a freethinker. 

She said that every Jew considers in his heart 

that English people are dirty in their habits. 

TANNER. [surprised] Dirty! 

MENDOZA. It showed her extraordinary 

knowledge of the world; for it is undoubtedly 

true. Our elaborate sanitary code makes us 

unduly contemptuous of the Gentile. 

TANNER. Did you ever hear that, Henry 

STRAKER. I’ve heard my sister say so. 

She was cook in a Jewish family once. 

MENDOZA. I could not deny it; neither 

could I eradicate the impression it made on 

her mind. I could have got round any other 

objection; but no woman can stand a suspicion 

of indelicacy as to her person. My entreaties 

were in vain: she always retorted that she 

wasn’t good enough for me, and recommended 

me to marry an accursed barmaid named Rebecca 

Lazarus, whom I loathed. I talked of 

suicide: she offered me a packet of beetle poison 

to do it with. I hinted at murder: she went 

into hysterics; and as I am a living man I went

ACT III 155 

to America so that she might sleep without 

dreaming that I was stealing upstairs to cut 

her throat. In America I went out west and 

fell in with a man who was wanted by the 

police for holding up trains. It was he who 

had the idea of holding up motors cars—in 

the South of Europe: a welcome idea to a desperate 

and disappointed man. He gave me 

some valuable introductions to capitalists of 

the right sort. I formed a syndicate; and the 

present enterprise is the result. I became 

leader, as the Jew always becomes leader, by 

his brains and imagination. But with all my 

pride of race I would give everything I possess 

to be an Englishman. I am like a boy: I cut 

her name on the trees and her initials on the 

sod. When I am alone I lie down and tear my 

wretched hair and cry Louisa— 

STRAKER. [startled] Louisa! 

MENDOZA. It is her name— Louisa— 

Louisa Straker— 

TANNER. Straker! 

STRAKER. [scrambling up on his knees 

most indignantly] Look here: Louisa Straker 

is my sister, see Wot do you mean by gassin 

about her like this Wot she got to do with 

you 

MENDOZA. A dramatic coincidence! You 

are Enry, her favorite brother! 

STRAKER. Oo are you callin Enry What 

call have you to take a liberty with my name 

or with hers For two pins I’d punch your fat 

ed, so I would. 

MENDOZA. [with grandiose calm] If I let 

you do it, will you promise to brag of it af-


terwards to her She will be reminded of her 

Mendoza: that is all I desire. 

TANNER. This is genuine devotion, Henry. 

You should respect it. 

STRAKER. [fiercely] Funk, more likely. 

MENDOZA. [springing to his feet] Funk! 

Young man: I come of a famous family of fighters; 

and as your sister well knows, you would 

have as much chance against me as a perambulator 

against your motor car. 

STRAKER. [secretly daunted, but rising 

from his knees with an air of reckless pugnacity] 

I ain’t afraid of you. With your Louisa! 

Louisa! Miss Straker is good enough for you, 

I should think. 

MENDOZA. I wish you could persuade her 

to think so. 

STRAKER. [exasperated] Here— 

TANNER. [rising quickly and interposing] 

Oh come, Henry: even if you could fight the 

President you can’t fight the whole League of 

the Sierra. Sit down again and be friendly. A 

cat may look at a king; and even a President 

of brigands may look at your sister. All this 

family pride is really very old fashioned. 

STRAKER. [subdued, but grumbling] Let 

him look at her. But wot does he mean by 

makin out that she ever looked at im [Reluctantly 

resuming his couch on the turf ] Ear 

him talk, one ud think she was keepin company 

with him. [He turns his back on them 

and composes himself to sleep]. 

MENDOZA. [to Tanner, becoming more 

confidential as he finds himself virtually 

alone with a sympathetic listener in the still

ACT III 157 

starlight of the mountains; for all the rest are 

asleep by this time] It was just so with her, sir. 

Her intellect reached forward into the twentieth 

century: her social prejudices and family 

affections reached back into the dark ages. 

Ah, sir, how the words of Shakespear seem to 

fit every crisis in our emotions! 

I loved Louisa: 40,000 brothers 

Could not with all their quantity of love 

Make up my sum. 

And so on. I forget the rest. Call it madness 

if you will—infatuation. I am an able man, a 

strong man: in ten years I should have owned 

a first-class hotel. I met her; and you see! I 

am a brigand, an outcast. Even Shakespear 

cannot do justice to what I feel for Louisa. Let 

me read you some lines that I have written 

about her myself. However slight their literary 

merit may be, they express what I feel better 

than any casual words can. [He produces a 

packet of hotel bills scrawled with manuscript, 

and kneels at the fire to decipher them, poking 

it with a stick to make it glow]. 

TANNER. [clapping him rudely on the 

shoulder] Put them in the fire, President. 

MENDOZA. [startled] Eh 

TANNER. You are sacrificing your career 

to a monomania. 

MENDOZA. I know it. 

TANNER. No you don’t. No man would 

commit such a crime against himself if he really 

knew what he was doing. How can you 

look round at these august hills, look up at 

this divine sky, taste this finely tempered air,


and then talk like a literary hack on a second 

floor in Bloomsbury 

MENDOZA. [shaking his head] The Sierra 

is no better than Bloomsbury when once the 

novelty has worn off. Besides, these mountains 

make you dream of women—of women 

with magnificent hair. 

TANNER. Of Louisa, in short. They will 

not make me dream of women, my friend: I 

am heartwhole. 

MENDOZA. Do not boast until morning, 

sir. This is a strange country for dreams. 

TANNER. Well, we shall see. Goodnight. 

[He lies down and composes himself to sleep]. 

Mendoza, with a sigh, follows his example; 

and for a few moments there is peace in the 

Sierra. Then Mendoza sits up suddenly and 

says pleadingly to Tanner— 

MENDOZA. Just allow me to read a few 

lines before you go to sleep. I should really 

like your opinion of them. 

TANNER. [drowsily] Go on. I am listening. 

MENDOZA. 

I saw thee first in Whitsun week 

Louisa, Louisa— 

TANNER. [roaring himself ] My dear President, 

Louisa is a very pretty name; but it really 

doesn’t rhyme well to Whitsun week. 

MENDOZA. Of course not. Louisa is not 

the rhyme, but the refrain. 

TANNER. [subsiding] Ah, the refrain. I 

beg your pardon. Go on. 

MENDOZA. Perhaps you do not care for 

that one: I think you will like this better. [He

ACT III 159 

recites, in rich soft tones, and to slow time] 

Louisa, I love thee. 

I love thee, Louisa. 

Louisa, Louisa, Louisa, I love thee. 

One name and one phrase make my music, 

Louisa. Louisa, Louisa, Louisa, I love thee. 

Mendoza thy lover, 

Thy lover, Mendoza, 

Mendoza adoringly lives for Louisa. 

There’s nothing but that in the world for Mendoza. 

Louisa, Louisa, Mendoza adores thee. 

[Affected] There is no merit in producing beautiful 

lines upon such a name. Louisa is an 

exquisite name, is it not 

TANNER. [all but asleep, responds with a 

faint groan]. 

MENDOZA. 

O wert thou, Louisa, 

The wife of Mendoza, 

Mendoza’s Louisa, Louisa Mendoza, 

How blest were the life of Louisa’s Mendoza! 

How painless his longing of love for Louisa! 

That is real poetry—from the heart—from the 

heart of hearts. Don’t you think it will move 

her 

No answer. 

MENDOZA. [Resignedly] Asleep, as usual. 

Doggrel to all the world; heavenly music to 

me! Idiot that I am to wear my heart on 

my sleeve! [He composes himself to sleep, 

murmuring] Louisa, I love thee; I love thee, 

Louisa; Louisa, Louisa, Louisa, I— 

Straker snores; rolls over on his side; and 

relapses into sleep. Stillness settles on the 

Sierra; and the darkness deepens. The fire has


again buried itself in white ash and ceased 

to glow. The peaks show unfathomably dark 

against the starry firmament; but now the 

stars dim and vanish; and the sky seems to 

steal away out of the universe. Instead of the 

Sierra there is nothing; omnipresent nothing. 

No sky, no peaks, no light, no sound, no time 

nor space, utter void. Then somewhere the beginning 

of a pallor, and with it a faint throbbing 

buzz as of a ghostly violoncello palpitating 

on the same note endlessly. A couple of 

ghostly violins presently take advantage of this 

bass 

and therewith the pallor reveals a man in the 

void, an incorporeal but visible man, seated, 

absurdly enough, on nothing. For a moment 

he raises his head as the music passes him by. 

Then, with a heavy sigh, he droops in utter dejection; 

and the violins, discouraged, retrace 

their melody in despair and at last give it up, 

extinguished by wailings from uncanny wind 

instruments, thus:—

ACT III 161 

It is all very odd. One recognizes the 

Mozartian strain; and on this hint, and by 

the aid of certain sparkles of violet light in 

the pallor, the man’s costume explains itself as 

that of a Spanish nobleman of the XV-XVI century. 

Don Juan, of course; but where why 

how Besides, in the brief lifting of his face, 

now hidden by his hat brim, there was a curious 

suggestion of Tanner. A more critical, 

fastidious, handsome face, paler and colder, 

without Tanner’s impetuous credulity and enthusiasm, 

and without a touch of his modern 

plutocratic vulgarity, but still a resemblance, 

even an identity. The name too: Don Juan 

Tenorio, John Tanner. Where on earth—–or 

elsewhere—have we got to from the XX century 

and the Sierra 

Another pallor in the void, this time not violet, 

but a disagreeable smoky yellow. With it, 

the whisper of a ghostly clarionet turning this 

tune into infinite sadness: 

The yellowish pallor moves: there is an old 

crone wandering in the void, bent and toothless; 

draped, as well as one can guess, in the 

coarse brown frock of some religious order. She 

wanders and wanders in her slow hopeless 

way, much as a wasp flies in its rapid busy 

way, until she blunders against the thing she 

seeks: companionship. With a sob of relief the 

poor old creature clutches at the presence of the 

man and addresses him in her dry unlovely


voice, which can still express pride and resolution 

as well as suffering. 

THE OLD WOMAN. Excuse me; but I am 

so lonely; and this place is so awful. 

DON JUAN. A new comer 

THE OLD WOMAN. Yes: I suppose I died 

this morning. I confessed; I had extreme unction; 

I was in bed with my family about me 

and my eyes fixed on the cross. Then it grew 

dark; and when the light came back it was this 

light by which I walk seeing nothing. I have 

wandered for hours in horrible loneliness. 

DON JUAN. [sighing] Ah! you have not yet 

lost the sense of time. One soon does, in eternity. 

THE OLD WOMAN. Where are we 

DON JUAN. In hell. 

THE OLD WOMAN [proudly] Hell! I in 

hell! How dare you 

DON JUAN. [unimpressed] Why not, 

Señora 

THE OLD WOMAN. You do not know to 

whom you are speaking. I am a lady, and a 

faithful daughter of the Church. 

DON JUAN. I do not doubt it. 

THE OLD WOMAN. But how then can I be 

in hell Purgatory, perhaps: I have not been 

perfect: who has But hell! oh, you are lying. 

DON JUAN. Hell, Señora, I assure 

you; hell at its best that is, its most 

solitary—though perhaps you would prefer 

company. 

THE OLD WOMAN. But I have sincerely 

repented; I have confessed. 

DON JUAN. How much

ACT III 163 

THE OLD WOMAN. More sins than I really 

committed. I loved confession. 

DON JUAN. Ah, that is perhaps as bad as 

confessing too little. At all events, Señora, 

whether by oversight or intention, you are certainly 

damned, like myself; and there is nothing 

for it now but to make the best of it. 

THE OLD WOMAN [indignantly] Oh! and 

I might have been so much wickeder! All my 

good deeds wasted! It is unjust. 

DON JUAN. No: you were fully and clearly 

warned. For your bad deeds, vicarious atonement, 

mercy without justice. For your good 

deeds, justice without mercy. We have many 

good people here. 

THE OLD WOMAN. Were you a good man 

DON JUAN. I was a murderer. 

THE OLD WOMAN. A murderer! Oh, how 

dare they send me to herd with murderers! I 

was not as bad as that: I was a good woman. 

There is some mistake: where can I have it set 

right 

DON JUAN. I do not know whether mistakes 

can be corrected here. Probably they 

will not admit a mistake even if they have 

made one. 

THE OLD WOMAN. But whom can I ask 

DON JUAN. I should ask the Devil, 

Señora: he understands the ways of this place, 

which is more than I ever could. 

THE OLD WOMAN. The Devil! I speak to 

the Devil! 

DON JUAN. In hell, Señora, the Devil is 

the leader of the best society.


THE OLD WOMAN. I tell you, wretch, I 

know I am not in hell. 

DON JUAN. How do you know 

THE OLD WOMAN. Because I feel no 

pain. 

DON JUAN. Oh, then there is no mistake: 

you are intentionally damned. 

THE OLD WOMAN. Why do you say that 

DON JUAN. Because hell, Señora, is a 

place for the wicked. The wicked are quite 

comfortable in it: it was made for them. You 

tell me you feel no pain. I conclude you are 

one of those for whom Hell exists. 

THE OLD WOMAN. Do you feel no pain 

DON JUAN. I am not one of the wicked, 

Señora; therefore it bores me, bores me beyond 

description, beyond belief. 

THE OLD WOMAN. Not one of the wicked! 

You said you were a murderer. 

DON JUAN. Only a duel. I ran my sword 

through an old man who was trying to run his 

through me. 

THE OLD WOMAN. If you were a gentleman, 

that was not a murder. 

DON JUAN. The old man called it murder, 

because he was, he said, defending his daughter’s 

honor. By this he meant that because I 

foolishly fell in love with her and told her so, 

she screamed; and he tried to assassinate me 

after calling me insulting names. 

THE OLD WOMAN. You were like all men. 

Libertines and murderers all, all, all! 

DON JUAN. And yet we meet here, dear 

lady.

ACT III 165 

THE OLD WOMAN. Listen to me. My father 

was slain by just such a wretch as you, 

in just such a duel, for just such a cause. I 

screamed: it was my duty. My father drew on 

my assailant: his honor demanded it. He fell: 

that was the reward of honor. I am here: in 

hell, you tell me that is the reward of duty. Is 

there justice in heaven 

DON JUAN. No; but there is justice in hell: 

heaven is far above such idle human personalities. 

You will be welcome in hell, Señora. 

Hell is the home of honor, duty, justice, and 

the rest of the seven deadly virtues. All the 

wickedness on earth is done in their name: 

where else but in hell should they have their 

reward Have I not told you that the truly 

damned are those who are happy in hell 

THE OLD WOMAN. And are you happy 

here 

DON JUAN. [Springing to his feet] No; and 

that is the enigma on which I ponder in darkness. 

Why am I here I, who repudiated all 

duty, trampled honor underfoot, and laughed 

at justice! 

THE OLD WOMAN. Oh, what do I care 

why you are here Why am I here I, who sacrificed 

all my inclinations to womanly virtue 

and propriety! 

DON JUAN. Patience, lady: you will be 

perfectly happy and at home here. As with 

the poet, “Hell is a city much like Seville.” 

THE OLD WOMAN. Happy! here! where I 

am nothing! where I am nobody! 

DON JUAN. Not at all: you are a lady; and 

wherever ladies are is hell. Do not be sur-


prised or terrified: you will find everything 

here that a lady can desire, including devils 

who will serve you from sheer love of servitude, 

and magnify your importance for the 

sake of dignifying their service—the best of 

servants. 

THE OLD WOMAN. My servants will be 

devils. 

DON JUAN. Have you ever had servants 

who were not devils 

THE OLD WOMAN. Never: they were devils, 

perfect devils, all of them. But that is only 

a manner of speaking. I thought you meant 

that my servants here would be real devils. 

DON JUAN. No more real devils than you 

will be a real lady. Nothing is real here. That 

is the horror of damnation. 

THE OLD WOMAN. Oh, this is all madness. 

This is worse than fire and the worm. 

DON JUAN. For you, perhaps, there are 

consolations. For instance: how old were you 

when you changed from time to eternity 

THE OLD WOMAN. Do not ask me how 

old I was as if I were a thing of the past. I am 

77. 

DON JUAN. A ripe age, Señora. But in hell 

old age is not tolerated. It is too real. Here 

we worship Love and Beauty. Our souls being 

entirely damned, we cultivate our hearts. 

As a lady of 77, you would not have a single 

acquaintance in hell. 

THE OLD WOMAN. How can I help my 

age, man 

DON JUAN. You forget that you have left 

your age behind you in the realm of time. You

ACT III 167 

are no more 77 than you are 7 or 17 or 27. 

THE OLD WOMAN. Nonsense! 

DON JUAN. Consider, Señora: was not 

this true even when you lived on earth When 

you were 70, were you really older underneath 

your wrinkles and your grey hams than when 

you were 30 

THE OLD WOMAN. No, younger: at 30 I 

was a fool. But of what use is it to feel younger 

and look older 

DON JUAN. You see, Señora, the look was 

only an illusion. Your wrinkles lied, just as 

the plump smooth skin of many a stupid girl of 

17, with heavy spirits and decrepit ideas, lies 

about her age Well, here we have no bodies: 

we see each other as bodies only because we 

learnt to think about one another under that 

aspect when we were alive; and we still think 

in that way, knowing no other. But we can 

appear to one another at what age we choose. 

You have but to will any of your old looks back, 

and back they will come. 

THE OLD WOMAN. It cannot be true. 

DON JUAN. Try. 

THE OLD WOMAN. Seventeen! 

DON JUAN. Stop. Before you decide, I had 

better tell you that these things are a matter 

of fashion. Occasionally we have a rage for 

17; but it does not last long. Just at present 

the fashionable age is 40—or say 37; but there 

are signs of a change. If you were at all goodlooking 

at 27, I should suggest your trying 

that, and setting a new fashion. 

THE OLD WOMAN. I do not believe a 

word you are saying. However, 27 be it.


[Whisk! the old woman becomes a young one, 

and so handsome that in the radiance into 

which her dull yellow halo has suddenly lightened 

one might almost mistake her for Ann 

Whitefield]. 

DON JUAN. Doña Ana de Ulloa! 

ANA. What You know me! 

DON JUAN. And you forget me! 

ANA. I cannot see your face. [He raises his 

hat]. Don Juan Tenorio! Monster! You who 

slew my father! even here you pursue me. 

DON JUAN. I protest I do not pursue you. 

Allow me to withdraw [going]. 

ANA. [reining his arm] You shall not leave 

me alone in this dreadful place. 

DON JUAN. Provided my staying be not 

interpreted as pursuit. 

ANA. [releasing him] You may well wonder 

how I can endure your presence. My dear, 

dear father! 

DON JUAN. Would you like to see him 

ANA. My father here!!! 

DON JUAN. No: he is in heaven. 

ANA. I knew it. My noble father! He is 

looking down on us now. What must he feel to 

see his daughter in this place, and in conversation 

with his murderer! 

DON JUAN. By the way, if we should meet 

him— 

ANA. How can we meet him He is in 

heaven. 

DON JUAN. He condescends to look in 

upon us here from time to time. Heaven bores 

him. So let me warn you that if you meet him 

he will be mortally offended if you speak of me

ACT III 169 

as his murderer! He maintains that he was a 

much better swordsman than I, and that if his 

foot had not slipped he would have killed me. 

No doubt he is right: I was not a good fencer. 

I never dispute the point; so we are excellent 

friends. 

ANA. It is no dishonor to a soldier to be 

proud of his skill in arms. 

DON JUAN. You would rather not meet 

him, probably. 

ANA. How dare you say that 

DON JUAN. Oh, that is the usual feeling 

here. You may remember that on 

earth—though of course we never confessed 

it—the death of anyone we knew, even those 

we liked best, was always mingled with a certain 

satisfaction at being finally done with 

them. 

ANA. Monster! Never, never. 

DON JUAN. [placidly] I see you recognize 

the feeling. Yes: a funeral was always a festivity 

in black, especially the funeral of a relative. 

At all events, family ties are rarely kept 

up here. Your father is quite accustomed to 

this: he will not expect any devotion from you. 

ANA. Wretch: I wore mourning for him all 

my life. 

DON JUAN. Yes: it became you. But a 

life of mourning is one thing: an eternity of 

it quite another. Besides, here you are as 

dead as he. Can anything be more ridiculous 

than one dead person mourning for another 

Do not look shocked, my dear Ana; and 

do not be alarmed: there is plenty of humbug 

in hell (indeed there is hardly anything else);


but the humbug of death and age and change 

is dropped because here we are all dead and 

all eternal. You will pick up our ways soon. 

ANA. And will all the men call me their 

dear Ana 

DON JUAN. No. That was a slip of the 

tongue. I beg your pardon. 

ANA. [almost tenderly] Juan: did you really 

love me when you behaved so disgracefully 

to me 

DON JUAN. [impatiently] Oh, I beg you 

not to begin talking about love. Here they 

talk of nothing else but love—its beauty, 

its holiness, its spirituality, its devil knows 

what!—excuse me; but it does so bore me. 

They don’t know what they’re talking about. 

I do. They think they have achieved the perfection 

of love because they have no bodies. 

Sheer imaginative debauchery! Faugh! 

ANA. Has even death failed to refine your 

soul, Juan Has the terrible judgment of 

which my father’s statue was the minister 

taught you no reverence 

DON JUAN. How is that very flattering 

statue, by the way Does it still come to supper 

with naughty people and cast them into 

this bottomless pit 

ANA. It has been a great expense to me. 

The boys in the monastery school would not 

let it alone: the mischievous ones broke it; 

and the studious ones wrote their names on 

it. Three new noses in two years, and fingers 

without end. I had to leave it to its fate at last; 

and now I fear it is shockingly mutilated. My 

poor father!

ACT III 171 

DON JUAN. Hush! Listen! [Two great 

chords rolling on syncopated waves of sound 

break forth: D minor and its dominant: a 

round of dreadful joy to all musicians]. Ha! 

Mozart’s statue music. It is your father. You 

had better disappear until I prepare him. [She 

vanishes]. 

From the void comes a living statue of white 

marble, designed to represent a majestic old 

man. But he waives his majesty with infinite 

grace; walks with a feather-like step; and 

makes every wrinkle in his war worn visage 

brim over with holiday joyousness. To his 

sculptor he owes a perfectly trained figure, 

which he carries erect and trim; and the ends 

of his moustache curl up, elastic as watchsprings, 

giving him an air which, but for its 

Spanish dignity, would be called jaunty. He is 

on the pleasantest terms with Don Juan. His 

voice, save for a much more distinguished intonation, 

is so like the voice of Roebuck Ramsden 

that it calls attention to the fact that they 

are not unlike one another in spite of their very 

different fashion of shaving. 

DON JUAN. Ah, here you are, my friend. 

Why don’t you learn to sing the splendid music 

Mozart has written for you 

THE STATUE. Unluckily he has written it 

for a bass voice. Mine is a counter tenor. Well: 

have you repented yet 

DON JUAN. I have too much consideration 

for you to repent, Don Gonzalo. If I did, you 

would have no excuse for coming from Heaven 

to argue with me. 

THE STATUE. True. 

Remain obdurate,


my boy. I wish I had killed you, as I should 

have done but for an accident. Then I should 

have come here; and you would have had a 

statue and a reputation for piety to live up to. 

Any news 

DON JUAN. Yes: your daughter is dead. 

THE STATUE. [puzzled] My daughter 

[Recollecting] Oh! the one you were taken 

with. Let me see: what was her name 

DON JUAN. Ana. 

THE STATUE. To be sure: Ana. A goodlooking 

girl, if I recollect aright. Have you 

warned Whatshisname—her husband 

DON JUAN. My friend Ottavio No: I have 

not seen him since Ana arrived. 

Ana comes indignantly to light. 

ANA. What does this mean Ottavio here 

and your friend! And you, father, have forgotten 

my name. You are indeed turned to stone. 

THE STATUE. My dear: I am so much 

more admired in marble than I ever was in 

my own person that I have retained the shape 

the sculptor gave me. He was one of the first 

men of his day: you must acknowledge that. 

ANA. Father! Vanity! personal vanity! 

from you! 

THE STATUE. Ah, you outlived that 

weakness, my daughter: you must be nearly 

80 by this time. I was cut off (by an accident) 

in my 64th year, and am considerably your junior 

in consequence. Besides, my child, in this 

place, what our libertine friend here would 

call the farce of parental wisdom is dropped. 

Regard me, I beg, as a fellow creature, not as 

a father.

ACT III 173 

ANA. You speak as this villain speaks. 

THE STATUE. Juan is a sound thinker, 

Ana. A bad fencer, but a sound thinker. 

ANA. [horror creeping upon her] I begin to 

understand. These are devils, mocking me. I 

had better pray. 

THE STATUE. [consoling her] No, no, no, 

my child: do not pray. If you do, you will throw 

away the main advantage of this place. Written 

over the gate here are the words “Leave 

every hope behind, ye who enter.” Only think 

what a relief that is! For what is hope A form 

of moral responsibility. Here there is no hope, 

and consequently no duty, no work, nothing 

to be gained by praying, nothing to be lost by 

doing what you like. Hell, in short, is a place 

where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself. 

[Don Juan sighs deeply]. You sigh, friend 

Juan; but if you dwelt in heaven, as I do, you 

would realize your advantages. 

DON JUAN. You are in good spirits today, 

Commander. You are positively brilliant. 

What is the matter 

THE STATUE. I have come to a momentous 

decision, my boy. But first, where is our 

friend the Devil I must consult him in the 

matter. And Ana would like to make his acquaintance, 

no doubt. 

ANA. You are preparing some torment for 

me. 

DON JUAN. All that is superstition, Ana. 

Reassure yourself. Remember: the devil is not 

so black as he is painted. 

THE STATUE. Let us give him a call. 

At the wave of the statue’s hand the


great chords roll out again but this time 

Mozart’s music gets grotesquely adulterated 

with Gounod’s. A scarlet halo begins to glow; 

and into it the Devil rises, very Mephistophelean, 

and not at all unlike Mendoza, though 

not so interesting. He looks older; is getting 

prematurely bald; and, in spite of an effusion 

of good-nature and friendliness, is peevish and 

sensitive when his advances are not reciprocated. 

He does not inspire much confidence 

in his powers of hard work or endurance, and 

is, on the whole, a disagreeably self-indulgent 

looking person; but he is clever and plausible, 

though perceptibly less well bred than the two 

other men, and enormously less vital than the 

woman. 

THE DEVIL. [heartily] Have I the pleasure 

of again receiving a visit from the illustrious 

Commander of Calatrava [Coldly] Don Juan, 

your servant. [Politely] And a strange lady 

My respects, Señora. 

ANA. Are you— 

THE DEVIL. [bowing] Lucifer, at your service. 

ANA. I shall go mad. 

THE DEVIL. [gallantly] Ah, Señora, do not 

be anxious. You come to us from earth, full 

of the prejudices and terrors of that priestridden 

place. You have heard me ill spoken 

of; and yet, believe me, I have hosts of friends 

there. 

ANA. Yes: you reign in their hearts. 

THE DEVIL. [shaking his head] You flatter 

me, Señora; but you are mistaken. It is 

true that the world cannot get on without me;

ACT III 175 

but it never gives me credit for that: in its 

heart it mistrusts and hates me. Its sympathies 

are all with misery, with poverty, with 

starvation of the body and of the heart. I call 

on it to sympathize with joy, with love, with 

happiness, with beauty. 

DON JUAN. [nauseated] Excuse me: I am 

going. You know I cannot stand this. 

THE DEVIL. [angrily] Yes: I know that you 

are no friend of mine. 

THE STATUE. What harm is he doing you, 

Juan It seems to me that he was talking excellent 

sense when you interrupted him. 

THE DEVIL. [warmly shaking the statue’s 

hand] Thank you, my friend: thank you. You 

have always understood me: he has always 

disparaged and avoided me. 

DON JUAN. I have treated you with perfect 

courtesy. 

THE DEVIL. Courtesy! What is courtesy 

I care nothing for mere courtesy. Give me 

warmth of heart, true sincerity, the bond of 

sympathy with love and joy— 

DON JUAN. You are making me ill. 

THE DEVIL. There! [Appealing to the 

statue] You hear, sir! Oh, by what irony of fate 

was this cold selfish egotist sent to my kingdom, 

and you taken to the icy mansions of the 

sky! 

THE STATUE. I can’t complain. I was a 

hypocrite; and it served me right to be sent to 

heaven. 

THE DEVIL. Why, sir, do you not join us, 

and leave a sphere for which your temperament 

is too sympathetic, your heart too warm,


your capacity for enjoyment too generous 

THE STATUE. I have this day resolved to 

do so. In future, excellent Son of the Morning, 

I am yours. I have left Heaven for ever. 

THE DEVIL. [again grasping his hand] 

Ah, what an honor for me! What a triumph for 

our cause! Thank you, thank you. And now, 

my friend—I may call you so at last—could 

you not persuade him to take the place you 

have left vacant above 

THE STATUE. [shaking his head] I cannot 

conscientiously recommend anybody with 

whom I am on friendly terms to deliberately 

make himself dull and uncomfortable. 

THE DEVIL. Of course not; but are you 

sure he would be uncomfortable Of course 

you know best: you brought him here originally; 

and we had the greatest hopes of him. 

His sentiments were in the best taste of our 

best people. You remember how he sang [He 

begins to sing in a nasal operatic baritone, 

tremulous from an eternity of misuse in the 

French manner]. 

Vivan lé femmine! 

Viva il buon vino! 

THE STATUE. [taking up the tune an octave 

higher in his counter tenor] 

Sostegno a gloria 

D’umanita. 

THE DEVIL. Precisely. 

sings for us now. 

Well, he never

ACT III 177 

DON JUAN. Do you complain of that 

Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the 

brandy of the damned. May not one lost soul 

be permitted to abstain 

THE DEVIL. You dare blaspheme against 

the sublimest of the arts! 

DON JUAN. [with cold disgust] You talk 

like a hysterical woman fawning on a fiddler. 

THE DEVIL. I am not angry. I merely pity 

you. You have no soul; and you are unconscious 

of all that you lose. Now you, Señor 

Commander, are a born musician. How well 

you sing! Mozart would be delighted if he 

were still here; but he moped and went to 

heaven. Curious how these clever men, whom 

you would have supposed born to be popular 

here, have turned out social failures, like Don 

Juan! 

DON JUAN. I am really very sorry to be a 

social failure. 

THE DEVIL. Not that we don’t admire 

your intellect, you know. We do. But I look at 

the matter from your own point of view. You 

don’t get on with us. The place doesn’t suit 

you. The truth is, you have—I won’t say no 

heart; for we know that beneath all your affected 

cynicism you have a warm one. 

DON JUAN. [shrinking] Don’t, please 

don’t. 

THE DEVIL. [nettled] Well, you’ve no capacity 

for enjoyment. Will that satisfy you 

DON JUAN. It is a somewhat less insufferable 

form of cant than the other. But if you’ll 

allow me, I’ll take refuge, as usual, in solitude. 

THE DEVIL. Why not take refuge in


Heaven That’s the proper place for you. [To 

Ana] Come, Señora! could you not persuade 

him for his own good to try a change of air 

ANA. But can he go to Heaven if he wants 

to 

THE DEVIL. What’s to prevent him 

ANA. Can anybody—can I go to Heaven if 

I want to 

THE DEVIL. [rather contemptuously] Certainly, 

if your taste lies that way. 

ANA. But why doesn’t everybody go to 

Heaven, then 

THE STATUE. [chuckling] I can tell you 

that, my dear. It’s because heaven is the most 

angelically dull place in all creation: that’s 

why. 

THE DEVIL. His excellency the Commander 

puts it with military bluntness; but the 

strain of living in Heaven is intolerable. There 

is a notion that I was turned out of it; but as a 

matter of fact nothing could have induced me 

to stay there. I simply left it and organized 

this place. 

THE STATUE. I don’t wonder at it. Nobody 

could stand an eternity of heaven. 

THE DEVIL. Oh, it suits some people. Let 

us be just, Commander: it is a question of temperament. 

I don’t admire the heavenly temperament: 

I don’t understand it: I don’t know 

that I particularly want to understand it; but 

it takes all sorts to make a universe. There is 

no accounting for tastes: there are people who 

like it. I think Don Juan would like it. 

DON JUAN. But—pardon my frankness—could 

you really go back there if you de-

ACT III 179 

sired to; or are the grapes sour 

THE DEVIL. Back there! I often go back 

there. Have you never read the book of Job 

Have you any canonical authority for assuming 

that there is any barrier between our circle 

and the other one 

ANA. But surely there is a great gulf fixed. 

THE DEVIL. Dear lady: a parable must 

not be taken literally. The gulf is the difference 

between the angelic and the diabolic 

temperament. What more impassable gulf 

could you have Think of what you have 

seen on earth. There is no physical gulf between 

the philosopher’s class room and the 

bull ring; but the bull fighters do not come 

to the class room for all that. Have you ever 

been in the country where I have the largest 

following—England There they have great 

race-courses, and also concert rooms where 

they play the classical compositions of his Excellency’s 

friend Mozart. Those who go to the 

race-courses can stay away from them and go 

to the classical concerts instead if they like: 

there is no law against it; for Englishmen 

never will be slaves: they are free to do whatever 

the Government and public opinion allows 

them to do. And the classical concert 

is admitted to be a higher, more cultivated, 

poetic, intellectual, ennobling place than the 

race-course. But do the lovers of racing desert 

their sport and flock to the concert room Not 

they. They would suffer there all the weariness 

the Commander has suffered in heaven. 

There is the great gulf of the parable between 

the two places. A mere physical gulf they


could bridge; or at least I could bridge it for 

them (the earth is full of Devil’s Bridges); but 

the gulf of dislike is impassable and eternal. 

And that is the only gulf that separates my 

friends here from those who are invidiously 

called the blest. 

ANA. I shall go to heaven at once. 

THE STATUE. My child; one word of 

warning first. Let me complete my friend Lucifer’s 

similitude of the classical concert. At 

every one of those concerts in England you 

will find rows of weary people who are there, 

not because they really like classical music, 

but because they think they ought to like it. 

Well, there is the same thing in heaven. A 

number of people sit there in glory, not because 

they are happy, but because they think 

they owe it to their position to be in heaven. 

They are almost all English. 

THE DEVIL. Yes: the Southerners give it 

up and join me just as you have done. But 

the English really do not seem to know when 

they are thoroughly miserable. An Englishman 

thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable. 

THE STATUE. In short, my daughter, if 

you go to Heaven without being naturally 

qualified for it, you will not enjoy yourself 

there. 

ANA. And who dares say that I am not naturally 

qualified for it The most distinguished 

princes of the Church have never questioned 

it. I owe it to myself to leave this place at once. 

THE DEVIL. [offended] As you please, 

Señora. I should have expected better taste

ACT III 181 

from you. 

ANA. Father: I shall expect you to come 

with me. You cannot stay here. What will people 

say 

THE STATUE. People! Why, the best people 

are here—princes of the church and all. 

So few go to Heaven, and so many come here, 

that the blest, once called a heavenly host, 

are a continually dwindling minority. The 

saints, the fathers, the elect of long ago are 

the cranks, the faddists, the outsiders of today. 

THE DEVIL. It is true. From the beginning 

of my career I knew that I should win in 

the long run by sheer weight of public opinion, 

in spite of the long campaign of misrepresentation 

and calumny against me. At bottom 

the universe is a constitutional one; and with 

such a majority as mine I cannot be kept permanently 

out of office. 

DON JUAN. I think, Ana, you had better 

stay here. 

ANA. [jealously] You do not want me to go 

with you. 

DON JUAN. Surely you do not want to enter 

Heaven in the company of a reprobate like 

me. 

ANA. All souls are equally precious. You 

repent, do you not 

DON JUAN. My dear Ana, you are silly. 

Do you suppose heaven is like earth, where 

people persuade themselves that what is done 

can be undone by repentance; that what is 

spoken can be unspoken by withdrawing it; 

that what is true can be annihilated by a gen-


eral agreement to give it the lie No: heaven 

is the home of the masters of reality: that is 

why I am going thither. 

ANA. Thank you: I am going to heaven for 

happiness. I have had quite enough of reality 

on earth. 

DON JUAN. Then you must stay here; for 

hell is the home of the unreal and of the seekers 

for happiness. It is the only refuge from 

heaven, which is, as I tell you, the home of 

the masters of reality, and from earth, which 

is the home of the slaves of reality. The earth 

is a nursery in which men and women play 

at being heros and heroines, saints and sinners; 

but they are dragged down from their 

fool’s paradise by their bodies: hunger and 

cold and thirst, age and decay and disease, 

death above all, make them slaves of reality: 

thrice a day meals must be eaten and 

digested: thrice a century a new generation 

must be engendered: ages of faith, of romance, 

and of science are all driven at last to have but 

one prayer “Make me a healthy animal.” But 

here you escape the tyranny of the flesh; for 

here you are not an animal at all: you are a 

ghost, an appearance, an illusion, a convention, 

deathless, ageless: in a word, bodiless. 

There are no social questions here, no political 

questions, no religious questions, best of 

all, perhaps, no sanitary questions. Here you 

call your appearance beauty, your emotions 

love, your sentiments heroism, your aspirations 

virtue, just as you did on earth; but here 

there are no hard facts to contradict you, no 

ironic contrast of your needs with your preten-

ACT III 183 

sions, no human comedy, nothing but a perpetual 

romance, a universal melodrama. As 

our German friend put it in his poem, “the poetically 

nonsensical here is good sense; and 

the Eternal Feminine draws us ever upward 

and on”—without getting us a step farther. 

And yet you want to leave this paradise! 

ANA. But if Hell be so beautiful as this, 

how glorious must heaven be! 

The Devil, the Statue, and Don Juan all 

begin to speak at once in violent protest; then 

stop, abashed. 

DON JUAN. I beg your pardon. 

THE DEVIL. Not at all. I interrupted you. 

THE STATUE. You were going to say 

something. 

DON JUAN. After you, gentlemen. 

THE DEVIL. [to Don Juan] You have been 

so eloquent on the advantages of my dominions 

that I leave you to do equal justice to the 

drawbacks of the alternative establishment. 

DON JUAN. In Heaven, as I picture it, 

dear lady, you live and work instead of playing 

and pretending. You face things as they 

are; you escape nothing but glamor; and your 

steadfastness and your peril are your glory. 

If the play still goes on here and on earth, 

and all the world is a stage, Heaven is at 

least behind the scenes. But Heaven cannot 

be described by metaphor. Thither I shall 

go presently, because there I hope to escape 

at last from lies and from the tedious, vulgar 

pursuit of happiness, to spend my eons in 

contemplation— 

THE STATUE. Ugh!


DON JUAN. Señor Commander: I do not 

blame your disgust: a picture gallery is a dull 

place for a blind man. But even as you enjoy 

the contemplation of such romantic mirages 

as beauty and pleasure; so would I enjoy 

the contemplation of that which interests me 

above all things namely, Life: the force that 

ever strives to attain greater power of contemplating 

itself. What made this brain of mine, 

do you think Not the need to move my limbs; 

for a rat with half my brains moves as well as 

I. Not merely the need to do, but the need to 

know what I do, lest in my blind efforts to live 

I should be slaying myself. 

THE STATUE. You would have slain yourself 

in your blind efforts to fence but for my 

foot slipping, my friend. 

DON JUAN. Audacious ribald: your laughter 

will finish in hideous boredom before 

morning. 

THE STATUE. Ha ha! Do you remember 

how I frightened you when I said something 

like that to you from my pedestal in Seville 

It sounds rather flat without my trombones. 

DON JUAN. They tell me it generally 

sounds flat with them, Commander. 

ANA. Oh, do not interrupt with these 

frivolities, father. Is there nothing in Heaven 

but contemplation, Juan 

DON JUAN. In the Heaven I seek, no other 

joy. But there is the work of helping Life in its 

struggle upward. Think of how it wastes and 

scatters itself, how it raises up obstacles to itself 

and destroys itself in its ignorance and 

blindness. It needs a brain, this irresistible

ACT III 185 

force, lest in its ignorance it should resist itself. 

What a piece of work is man! says the 

poet. Yes: but what a blunderer! Here is the 

highest miracle of organization yet attained 

by life, the most intensely alive thing that exists, 

the most conscious of all the organisms; 

and yet, how wretched are his brains! Stupidity 

made sordid and cruel by the realities 

learnt from toil and poverty: Imagination resolved 

to starve sooner than face these realities, 

piling up illusions to hide them, and calling 

itself cleverness, genius! And each accusing 

the other of its own defect: Stupidity 

accusing Imagination of folly, and Imagination 

accusing Stupidity of ignorance: whereas, 

alas! Stupidity has all the knowledge, and 

Imagination all the intelligence. 

THE DEVIL. And a pretty kettle of fish 

they make of it between them. Did I not say, 

when I was arranging that affair of Faust’s, 

that all Man’s reason has done for him is 

to make him beastlier than any beast. One 

splendid body is worth the brains of a hundred 

dyspeptic, flatulent philosophers. 

DON JUAN. You forget that brainless 

magnificence of body has been tried. Things 

immeasurably greater than man in every respect 

but brain have existed and perished. 

The megatherium, the icthyosaurus have 

paced the earth with seven-league steps and 

hidden the day with cloud vast wings. Where 

are they now Fossils in museums, and so few 

and imperfect at that, that a knuckle bone or a 

tooth of one of them is prized beyond the lives 

of a thousand soldiers. These things lived and


wanted to live; but for lack of brains they did 

not know how to carry out their purpose, and 

so destroyed themselves. 

THE DEVIL. And is Man any the less destroying 

himself for all this boasted brain of 

his Have you walked up and down upon 

the earth lately I have; and I have examined 

Man’s wonderful inventions. And I tell 

you that in the arts of life man invents nothing; 

but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature 

herself, and produces by chemistry and 

machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence 

and famine. The peasant I tempt to-day 

eats and drinks what was eaten and drunk 

by the peasants of ten thousand years ago; 

and the house he lives in has not altered as 

much in a thousand centuries as the fashion 

of a lady’s bonnet in a score of weeks. But 

when he goes out to slay, he carries a marvel 

of mechanism that lets loose at the touch of 

his finger all the hidden molecular energies, 

and leaves the javelin, the arrow, the blowpipe 

of his fathers far behind. In the arts 

of peace Man is a bungler. I have seen his 

cotton factories and the like, with machinery 

that a greedy dog could have invented if it 

had wanted money instead of food. I know 

his clumsy typewriters and bungling locomotives 

and tedious bicycles: they are toys compared 

to the Maxim gun, the submarine torpedo 

boat. There is nothing in Man’s industrial 

machinery but his greed and sloth: his 

heart is in his weapons. This marvellous force 

of Life of which you boast is a force of Death: 

Man measures his strength by his destruc-

ACT III 187 

tiveness. What is his religion An excuse for 

hating me. What is his law An excuse for 

hanging you. What is his morality Gentility! 

an excuse for consuming without producing. 

What is his art An excuse for gloating 

over pictures of slaughter. What are his politics 

Either the worship of a despot because 

a despot can kill, or parliamentary cockfighting. 

I spent an evening lately in a certain celebrated 

legislature, and heard the pot lecturing 

the kettle for its blackness, and ministers 

answering questions. When I left I chalked 

up on the door the old nursery saying—“Ask 

no questions and you will be told no lies.” 

I bought a sixpenny family magazine, and 

found it full of pictures of young men shooting 

and stabbing one another. I saw a man 

die: he was a London bricklayer’s laborer with 

seven children. He left seventeen pounds club 

money; and his wife spent it all on his funeral 

and went into the workhouse with the children 

next day. She would not have spent sevenpence 

on her children’s schooling: the law 

had to force her to let them be taught gratuitously; 

but on death she spent all she had. 

Their imagination glows, their energies rise 

up at the idea of death, these people: they love 

it; and the more horrible it is the more they 

enjoy it. Hell is a place far above their comprehension: 

they derive their notion of it from 

two of the greatest fools that ever lived, an 

Italian and an Englishman. The Italian described 

it as a place of mud, frost, filth, fire, 

and venomous serpents: all torture. This ass, 

when he was not lying about me, was maun-


dering about some woman whom he saw once 

in the street. The Englishman described me 

as being expelled from Heaven by cannons 

and gunpowder; and to this day every Briton 

believes that the whole of his silly story is in 

the Bible. What else he says I do not know; for 

it is all in a long poem which neither I nor anyone 

else ever succeeded in wading through. It 

is the same in everything. The highest form 

of literature is the tragedy, a play in which 

everybody is murdered at the end. In the 

old chronicles you read of earthquakes and 

pestilences, and are told that these showed 

the power and majesty of God and the littleness 

of Man. Nowadays the chronicles describe 

battles. In a battle two bodies of men 

shoot at one another with bullets and explosive 

shells until one body runs away, when 

the others chase the fugitives on horseback 

and cut them to pieces as they fly. And this, 

the chronicle concludes, shows the greatness 

and majesty of empires, and the littleness of 

the vanquished. Over such battles the people 

run about the streets yelling with delight, and 

egg their Governments on to spend hundreds 

of millions of money in the slaughter, whilst 

the strongest Ministers dare not spend an extra 

penny in the pound against the poverty 

and pestilence through which they themselves 

daily walk. I could give you a thousand instances; 

but they all come to the same thing: 

the power that governs the earth is not the 

power of Life but of Death; and the inner need 

that has nerved Life to the effort of organizing 

itself into the human being is not the need

ACT III 189 

for higher life but for a more efficient engine 

of destruction. The plague, the famine, the 

earthquake, the tempest were too spasmodic 

in their action; the tiger and crocodile were too 

easily satiated and not cruel enough: something 

more constantly, more ruthlessly, more 

ingeniously destructive was needed; and that 

something was Man, the inventor of the rack, 

the stake, the gallows, and the electrocutor; of 

the sword and gun; above all, of justice, duty, 

patriotism and all the other isms by which 

even those who are clever enough to be humanely 

disposed are persuaded to become the 

most destructive of all the destroyers. 

DON JUAN. Pshaw! all this is old. Your 

weak side, my diabolic friend, is that you have 

always been a gull: you take Man at his own 

valuation. Nothing would flatter him more 

than your opinion of him. He loves to think 

of himself as bold and bad. He is neither one 

nor the other: he is only a coward. Call him 

tyrant, murderer, pirate, bully; and he will 

adore you, and swagger about with the consciousness 

of having the blood of the old sea 

kings in his veins. Call him liar and thief; and 

he will only take an action against you for libel. 

But call him coward; and he will go mad 

with rage: he will face death to outface that 

stinging truth. Man gives every reason for his 

conduct save one, every excuse for his crimes 

save one, every plea for his safety save one; 

and that one is his cowardice. Yet all his civilization 

is founded on his cowardice, on his abject 

tameness, which he calls his respectability. 

There are limits to what a mule or an ass


will stand; but Man will suffer himself to be 

degraded until his vileness becomes so loathsome 

to his oppressors that they themselves 

are forced to reform it. 

THE DEVIL. Precisely. And these are the 

creatures in whom you discover what you call 

a Life Force! 

DON JUAN. Yes; for now comes the most 

surprising part of the whole business. 

THE STATUE. What’s that 

DON JUAN. Why, that you can make any 

of these cowards brave by simply putting an 

idea into his head. 

THE STATUE. Stuff! As an old soldier I 

admit the cowardice: it’s as universal as sea 

sickness, and matters just as little. But that 

about putting an idea into a man’s head is 

stuff and nonsense. In a battle all you need 

to make you fight is a little hot blood and 

the knowledge that it’s more dangerous to lose 

than to win. 

DON JUAN. That is perhaps why battles 

are so useless. But men never really overcome 

fear until they imagine they are fighting to 

further a universal purpose—fighting for an 

idea, as they call it. Why was the Crusader 

braver than the pirate Because he fought, 

not for himself, but for the Cross. What force 

was it that met him with a valor as reckless 

as his own The force of men who fought, not 

for themselves, but for Islam. They took Spain 

from us, though we were fighting for our very 

hearths and homes; but when we, too, fought 

for that mighty idea, a Catholic Church, we 

swept them back to Africa.

ACT III 191 

THE DEVIL. [ironically] What! you a 

Catholic, Señor Don Juan! A devotee! My congratulations. 

THE STATUE. [seriously] Come come! as 

a soldier, I can listen to nothing against the 

Church. 

DON JUAN. Have no fear, Commander: 

this idea of a Catholic Church will survive Islam, 

will survive the Cross, will survive even 

that vulgar pageant of incompetent schoolboyish 

gladiators which you call the Army. 

THE STATUE. Juan: you will force me to 

call you to account for this. 

DON JUAN. Useless: I cannot fence. Every 

idea for which Man will die will be a 

Catholic idea. When the Spaniard learns at 

last that he is no better than the Saracen, and 

his prophet no better than Mahomet, he will 

arise, more Catholic than ever, and die on a 

barricade across the filthy slum he starves in, 

for universal liberty and equality. 

THE STATUE. Bosh! 

DON JUAN. What you call bosh is the only 

thing men dare die for. Later on, Liberty will 

not be Catholic enough: men will die for human 

perfection, to which they will sacrifice all 

their liberty gladly. 

THE DEVIL. Ay: they will never be at a 

loss for an excuse for killing one another. 

DON JUAN. What of that It is not death 

that matters, but the fear of death. It is not 

killing and dying that degrade us, but base 

living, and accepting the wages and profits of 

degradation. Better ten dead men than one 

live slave or his master. Men shall yet rise


up, father against son and brother against 

brother, and kill one another for the great 

Catholic idea of abolishing slavery. 

THE DEVIL. Yes, when the Liberty and 

Equality of which you prate shall have made 

free white Christians cheaper in the labor 

market than by auction at the block. 

DON JUAN. Never fear! the white laborer 

shall have his turn too. But I am not now 

defending the illusory forms the great ideas 

take. I am giving you examples of the fact that 

this creature Man, who in his own selfish affairs 

is a coward to the backbone, will fight for 

an idea like a hero. He may be abject as a 

citizen; but he is dangerous as a fanatic. He 

can only be enslaved whilst he is spiritually 

weak enough to listen to reason. I tell you, 

gentlemen, if you can show a man a piece of 

what he now calls God’s work to do, and what 

he will later on call by many new names, you 

can make him entirely reckless of the consequences 

to himself personally. 

ANA. Yes: he shirks all his responsibilities, 

and leaves his wife to grapple with them. 

THE STATUE. Well said, daughter. Do not 

let him talk you out of your common sense. 

THE DEVIL. Alas! Señor Commander, 

now that we have got on to the subject of 

Woman, he will talk more than ever. However, 

I confess it is for me the one supremely 

interesting subject. 

DON JUAN. To a woman, Señora, man’s 

duties and responsibilities begin and end with 

the task of getting bread for her children. To 

her, Man is only a means to the end of getting

ACT III 193 

children and rearing them. 

ANA. Is that your idea of a woman’s mind 

I call it cynical and disgusting materialism. 

DON JUAN. Pardon me, Ana: I said nothing 

about a woman’s whole mind. I spoke of 

her view of Man as a separate sex. It is no 

more cynical than her view of herself as above 

all things a Mother. Sexually, Woman is Nature’s 

contrivance for perpetuating its highest 

achievement. Sexually, Man is Woman’s contrivance 

for fulfilling Nature’s behest in the 

most economical way. She knows by instinct 

that far back in the evolutional process she 

invented him, differentiated him, created him 

in order to produce something better than the 

single-sexed process can produce. Whilst he 

fulfils the purpose for which she made him, he 

is welcome to his dreams, his follies, his ideals, 

his heroisms, provided that the keystone 

of them all is the worship of woman, of motherhood, 

of the family, of the hearth. But how 

rash and dangerous it was to invent a separate 

creature whose sole function was her own 

impregnation! For mark what has happened. 

First, Man has multiplied on her hands until 

there are as many men as women; so that 

she has been unable to employ for her purposes 

more than a fraction of the immense 

energy she has left at his disposal by saving 

him the exhausting labor of gestation. This 

superfluous energy has gone to his brain and 

to his muscle. He has become too strong to 

be controlled by her bodily, and too imaginative 

and mentally vigorous to be content with 

mere self-reproduction. He has created civi-


lization without consulting her, taking her domestic 

labor for granted as the foundation of 

it. 

ANA. That is true, at all events. 

THE DEVIL. Yes; and this civilization! 

what is it, after all 

DON JUAN. After all, an excellent peg to 

hang your cynical commonplaces on; but before 

all, it is an attempt on Man’s part to make 

himself something more than the mere instrument 

of Woman’s purpose. So far, the result 

of Life’s continual effort not only to maintain 

itself, but to achieve higher and higher organization 

and completer self-consciousness, is 

only, at best, a doubtful campaign between its 

forces and those of Death and Degeneration. 

The battles in this campaign are mere blunders, 

mostly won, like actual military battles, 

in spite of the commanders. 

THE STATUE. That is a dig at me. No 

matter: go on, go on. 

DON JUAN. It is a dig at a much higher 

power than you, Commander. Still, you must 

have noticed in your profession that even a 

stupid general can win battles when the enemy’s 

general is a little stupider. 

THE STATUE. [very seriously] Most true, 

Juan, most true. Some donkeys have amazing 

luck. 

DON JUAN. Well, the Life Force is stupid; 

but it is not so stupid as the forces of Death 

and Degeneration. Besides, these are in its 

pay all the time. And so Life wins, after a 

fashion. What mere copiousness of fecundity 

can supply and mere greed preserve, we pos-

ACT III 195 

sess. The survival of whatever form of civilization 

can produce the best rifle and the best fed 

riflemen is assured. 

THE DEVIL. Exactly! the survival, not 

of the most effective means of Life but of 

the most effective means of Death. You always 

come back to my point, in spite of 

your wrigglings and evasions and sophistries, 

not to mention the intolerable length of your 

speeches. 

DON JUAN. Oh come! who began making 

long speeches However, if I overtax your intellect, 

you can leave us and seek the society 

of love and beauty and the rest of your favorite 

boredoms. 

THE DEVIL. [much offended] This is not 

fair, Don Juan, and not civil. I am also on the 

intellectual plane. Nobody can appreciate it 

more than I do. I am arguing fairly with you, 

and, I think, utterly refuting you. Let us go 

on for another hour if you like. 

DON JUAN. Good: let us. 

THE STATUE. Not that I see any prospect 

of your coming to any point in particular, 

Juan. Still, since in this place, instead of 

merely killing time we have to kill eternity, 

go ahead by all means. 

DON JUAN. [somewhat impatiently] My 

point, you marbleheaded old masterpiece, is 

only a step ahead of you. Are we agreed 

that Life is a force which has made innumerable 

experiments in organizing itself; that the 

mammoth and the man, the mouse and the 

megatherium, the flies and the fleas and the 

Fathers of the Church, are all more or less


successful attempts to build up that raw force 

into higher and higher individuals, the ideal 

individual being omnipotent, omniscient, infallible, 

and withal completely, unilludedly 

self-conscious: in short, a god 

THE DEVIL. I agree, for the sake of argument. 

THE STATUE. I agree, for the sake of 

avoiding argument. 

ANA. I most emphatically disagree as regards 

the Fathers of the Church; and I must 

beg you not to drag them into the argument. 

DON JUAN. I did so purely for the sake 

of alliteration, Ana; and I shall make no further 

allusion to them. And now, since we are, 

with that exception, agreed so far, will you not 

agree with me further that Life has not measured 

the success of its attempts at godhead 

by the beauty or bodily perfection of the result, 

since in both these respects the birds, 

as our friend Aristophanes long ago pointed 

out, are so extraordinarily superior, with their 

power of flight and their lovely plumage, and, 

may I add, the touching poetry of their loves 

and nestings, that it is inconceivable that Life, 

having once produced them, should, if love 

and beauty were her object, start off on another 

line and labor at the clumsy elephant 

and the hideous ape, whose grandchildren we 

are 

ANA. Aristophanes was a heathen; and 

you, Juan, I am afraid, are very little better. 

THE DEVIL. You conclude, then, that Life 

was driving at clumsiness and ugliness 

DON JUAN. No, perverse devil that you

ACT III 197 

are, a thousand times no. Life was driving 

at brains—at its darling object: an organ by 

which it can attain not only self-consciousness 

but self-understanding. 

THE STATUE. This is metaphysics, Juan. 

Why the devil should—[to the Devil] I beg your 

pardon. 

THE DEVIL. Pray don’t mention it. I have 

always regarded the use of my name to secure 

additional emphasis as a high compliment to 

me. It is quite at your service, Commander. 

THE STATUE. Thank you: that’s very 

good of you. Even in heaven, I never quite 

got out of my old military habits of speech. 

What I was going to ask Juan was why Life 

should bother itself about getting a brain. 

Why should it want to understand itself Why 

not be content to enjoy itself 

DON JUAN. Without a brain, Commander, 

you would enjoy yourself without knowing it, 

and so lose all the fun. 

THE STATUE. True, most true. But I am 

quite content with brain enough to know that 

I’m enjoying myself. I don’t want to understand 

why. In fact, I’d rather not. My experience 

is that one’s pleasures don’t bear thinking 

about. 

DON JUAN. That is why intellect is so unpopular. 

But to Life, the force behind the Man, 

intellect is a necessity, because without it he 

blunders into death. Just as Life, after ages of 

struggle, evolved that wonderful bodily organ 

the eye, so that the living organism could see 

where it was going and what was coming to 

help or threaten it, and thus avoid a thousand


dangers that formerly slew it, so it is evolving 

to-day a mind’s eye that shall see, not the 

physical world, but the purpose of Life, and 

thereby enable the individual to work for that 

purpose instead of thwarting and baffling it 

by setting up shortsighted personal aims as 

at present. Even as it is, only one sort of man 

has ever been happy, has ever been universally 

respected among all the conflicts of interests 

and illusions. 

THE STATUE. You mean the military 

man. 

DON JUAN. Commander: I do not mean 

the military man. When the military man approaches, 

the world locks up its spoons and 

packs off its womankind. No: I sing, not arms 

and the hero, but the philosophic man: he who 

seeks in contemplation to discover the inner 

will of the world, in invention to discover the 

means of fulfilling that will, and in action to 

do that will by the so-discovered means. Of 

all other sorts of men I declare myself tired. 

They’re tedious failures. When I was on earth, 

professors of all sorts prowled round me feeling 

for an unhealthy spot in me on which they 

could fasten. The doctors of medicine bade 

me consider what I must do to save my body, 

and offered me quack cures for imaginary diseases. 

I replied that I was not a hypochondriac; 

so they called me Ignoramus and went 

their way. The doctors of divinity bade me consider 

what I must do to save my soul; but I 

was not a spiritual hypochondriac any more 

than a bodily one, and would not trouble myself 

about that either; so they called me Athe-

ACT III 199 

ist and went their way. After them came the 

politician, who said there was only one purpose 

in Nature, and that was to get him into 

parliament. I told him I did not care whether 

he got into parliament or not; so he called me 

Mugwump and went his way. Then came the 

romantic man, the Artist, with his love songs 

and his paintings and his poems; and with 

him I had great delight for many years, and 

some profit; for I cultivated my senses for his 

sake; and his songs taught me to hear better, 

his paintings to see better, and his poems to 

feel more deeply. But he led me at last into 

the worship of Woman. 

ANA. Juan! 

DON JUAN. Yes: I came to believe that in 

her voice was all the music of the song, in her 

face all the beauty of the painting, and in her 

soul all the emotion of the poem. 

ANA. And you were disappointed, I suppose. 

Well, was it her fault that you attributed 

all these perfections to her 

DON JUAN. Yes, partly. For with a wonderful 

instinctive cunning, she kept silent and 

allowed me to glorify her; to mistake my own 

visions, thoughts, and feelings for hers. Now 

my friend the romantic man was often too 

poor or too timid to approach those women 

who were beautiful or refined enough to seem 

to realize his ideal; and so he went to his grave 

believing in his dream. But I was more favored 

by nature and circumstance. I was of 

noble birth and rich; and when my person did 

not please, my conversation flattered, though 

I generally found myself fortunate in both.


THE STATUE. Coxcomb! 

DON JUAN. Yes; but even my coxcombry 

pleased. Well, I found that when I had 

touched a woman’s imagination, she would allow 

me to persuade myself that she loved me; 

but when my suit was granted she never said 

“I am happy: my love is satisfied”: she always 

said, first, “At last, the barriers are down,” 

and second, “When will you come again” 

ANA. That is exactly what men say. 

DON JUAN. I protest I never said it. But 

all women say it. Well, these two speeches always 

alarmed me; for the first meant that the 

lady’s impulse had been solely to throw down 

my fortifications and gain my citadel; and the 

second openly announced that henceforth she 

regarded me as her property, and counted my 

time as already wholly at her disposal. 

THE DEVIL. That is where your want of 

heart came in. 

THE STATUE. [shaking his head] You 

shouldn’t repeat what a woman says, Juan. 

ANA. [severely] It should be sacred to you. 

THE STATUE. Still, they certainly do always 

say it. I never minded the barriers; 

but there was always a slight shock about the 

other, unless one was very hard hit indeed. 

DON JUAN. Then the lady, who had been 

happy and idle enough before, became anxious, 

preoccupied with me, always intriguing, 

conspiring, pursuing, watching, waiting, bent 

wholly on making sure of her prey—I being 

the prey, you understand. Now this was not 

what I had bargained for. It may have been 

very proper and very natural; but it was not

ACT III 201 

music, painting, poetry and joy incarnated in 

a beautiful woman. I ran away from it. I ran 

away from it very often: in fact I became famous 

for running away from it. 

ANA. Infamous, you mean, 

DON JUAN. I did not run away from you. 

Do you blame me for running away from the 

others 

ANA. Nonsense, man. You are talking to a 

woman of 77 now. If you had had the chance, 

you would have run away from me too—if I 

had let you. You would not have found it so 

easy with me as with some of the others. If 

men will not be faithful to their home and 

their duties, they must be made to be. I daresay 

you all want to marry lovely incarnations 

of music and painting and poetry. Well, you 

can’t have them, because they don’t exist. If 

flesh and blood is not good enough for you you 

must go without: that’s all. Women have to 

put up with flesh-and-blood husbands—and 

little enough of that too, sometimes; and you 

will have to put up with flesh-and-blood wives. 

[The Devil looks dubious. The Statue makes a 

wry face.] I see you don’t like that, any of you; 

but it’s true, for all that; so if you don’t like it 

you can lump it. 

DON JUAN. My dear lady, you have put 

my whole case against romance into a few sentences. 

That is just why I turned my back 

on the romantic man with the artist nature, 

as he called his infatuation. I thanked him 

for teaching me to use my eyes and ears; but 

I told him that his beauty worshipping and 

happiness hunting and woman idealizing was


not worth a dump as a philosophy of life; so he 

called me Philistine and went his way. 

ANA. It seems that Woman taught you 

something, too, with all her defects. 

DON JUAN. She did more: she interpreted 

all the other teaching for me. Ah, my friends, 

when the barriers were down for the first 

time, what an astounding illumination! I had 

been prepared for infatuation, for intoxication, 

for all the illusions of love’s young dream; 

and lo! never was my perception clearer, nor 

my criticism more ruthless. The most jealous 

rival of my mistress never saw every blemish 

in her more keenly than I. I was not duped: I 

took her without chloroform. 

ANA. But you did take her. 

DON JUAN. That was the revelation. Up 

to that moment I had never lost the sense 

of being my own master; never consciously 

taken a single step until my reason had examined 

and approved it. I had come to believe 

that I was a purely rational creature: a 

thinker! I said, with the foolish philosopher, 

“I think; therefore I am.” It was Woman who 

taught me to say “I am; therefore I think.” 

And also “I would think more; therefore I 

must be more.” 

THE STATUE. This is extremely abstract 

and metaphysical, Juan. If you would stick 

to the concrete, and put your discoveries in 

the form of entertaining anecdotes about your 

adventures with women, your conversation 

would be easier to follow. 

DON JUAN. Bah! what need I add Do 

you not understand that when I stood face to

ACT III 203 

face with Woman, every fibre in my clear critical 

brain warned me to spare her and save 

myself. My morals said No. My conscience 

said No. My chivalry and pity for her said 

No. My prudent regard for myself said No. 

My ear, practised on a thousand songs and 

symphonies; my eye, exercised on a thousand 

paintings; tore her voice, her features, her 

color to shreds. I caught all those tell-tale resemblances 

to her father and mother by which 

I knew what she would be like in thirty years 

time. I noted the gleam of gold from a dead 

tooth in the laughing mouth: I made curious 

observations of the strange odors of the chemistry 

of the nerves. The visions of my romantic 

reveries, in which I had trod the plains of 

heaven with a deathless, ageless creature of 

coral and ivory, deserted me in that supreme 

hour. I remembered them and desperately 

strove to recover their illusion; but they now 

seemed the emptiest of inventions: my judgment 

was not to be corrupted: my brain still 

said No on every issue. And whilst I was in 

the act of framing my excuse to the lady, Life 

seized me and threw me into her arms as a 

sailor throws a scrap of fish into the mouth of 

a seabird. 

THE STATUE. You might as well have 

gone without thinking such a lot about it, 

Juan. You are like all the clever men: you 

have more brains than is good for you. 

THE DEVIL. And were you not the happier 

for the experience, Señor Don Juan 

DON JUAN. The happier, no: the wiser, 

yes. That moment introduced me for the first


time to myself, and, through myself, to the 

world. I saw then how useless it is to attempt 

to impose conditions on the irresistible force 

of Life; to preach prudence, careful selection, 

virtue, honor, chastity— 

ANA. Don Juan: a word against chastity is 

an insult to me. 

DON JUAN. I say nothing against your 

chastity, Señora, since it took the form of a 

husband and twelve children. What more 

could you have done had you been the most 

abandoned of women 

ANA. I could have had twelve husbands 

and no children that’s what I could have done, 

Juan. And let me tell you that that would 

have made all the difference to the earth 

which I replenished. 

THE STATUE. Bravo Ana! Juan: you are 

floored, quelled, annihilated. 

DON JUAN. No; for though that difference 

is the true essential difference—Dona 

Ana has, I admit, gone straight to the real 

point—yet it is not a difference of love or 

chastity, or even constancy; for twelve children 

by twelve different husbands would have 

replenished the earth perhaps more effectively. 

Suppose my friend Ottavio had died 

when you were thirty, you would never have 

remained a widow: you were too beautiful. 

Suppose the successor of Ottavio had died 

when you were forty, you would still have been 

irresistible; and a woman who marries twice 

marries three times if she becomes free to do 

so. Twelve lawful children borne by one highly 

respectable lady to three different fathers is

ACT III 205 

not impossible nor condemned by public opinion. 

That such a lady may be more law abiding 

than the poor girl whom we used to spurn 

into the gutter for bearing one unlawful infant 

is no doubt true; but dare you say she is less 

self-indulgent 

ANA. She is less virtuous: that is enough 

for me. 

DON JUAN. In that case, what is virtue 

but the Trade Unionism of the married Let 

us face the facts, dear Ana. The Life Force 

respects marriage only because marriage is 

a contrivance of its own to secure the greatest 

number of children and the closest care 

of them. For honor, chastity and all the 

rest of your moral figments it cares not a 

rap. Marriage is the most licentious of human 

institutions— 

ANA. Juan! 

THE STATUE. [protesting] Really!— 

DON JUAN. [determinedly] I say the most 

licentious of human institutions: that is the 

secret of its popularity. And a woman seeking 

a husband is the most unscrupulous of all the 

beasts of prey. The confusion of marriage with 

morality has done more to destroy the conscience 

of the human race than any other single 

error. Come, Ana! do not look shocked: you 

know better than any of us that marriage is 

a mantrap baited with simulated accomplishments 

and delusive idealizations. When your 

sainted mother, by dint of scoldings and punishments, 

forced you to learn how to play half 

a dozen pieces on the spinet which she hated 

as much as you did—had she any other pur-


pose than to delude your suitors into the belief 

that your husband would have in his home an 

angel who would fill it with melody, or at least 

play him to sleep after dinner You married 

my friend Ottavio: well, did you ever open the 

spinet from the hour when the Church united 

him to you 

ANA. You are a fool, Juan. A young married 

woman has something else to do than 

sit at the spinet without any support for her 

back; so she gets out of the habit of playing. 

DON JUAN. Not if she loves music. No: believe 

me, she only throws away the bait when 

the bird is in the net. 

ANA. [bitterly] And men, I suppose, never 

throw off the mask when their bird is in the 

net. The husband never becomes negligent, 

selfish, brutal—oh never! 

DON JUAN. What do these recriminations 

prove, Ana Only that the hero is as gross an 

imposture as the heroine. 

ANA. It is all nonsense: most marriages 

are perfectly comfortable. 

DON JUAN. “Perfectly” is a strong expression, 

Ana. What you mean is that sensible 

people make the best of one another. Send me 

to the galleys and chain me to the felon whose 

number happens to be next before mine; and I 

must accept the inevitable and make the best 

of the companionship. Many such companionships, 

they tell me, are touchingly affectionate; 

and most are at least tolerably friendly. 

But that does not make a chain a desirable 

ornament nor the galleys an abode of bliss. 

Those who talk most about the blessings of

ACT III 207 

marriage and the constancy of its vows are the 

very people who declare that if the chain were 

broken and the prisoners left free to choose, 

the whole social fabric would fly asunder. You 

cannot have the argument both ways. If the 

prisoner is happy, why lock him in If he is 

not, why pretend that he is 

ANA. At all events, let me take an old 

woman’s privilege again, and tell you flatly 

that marriage peoples the world and debauchery 

does not. 

DON JUAN. How if a time comes when 

this shall cease to be true Do you not know 

that where there is a will there is a way—that 

whatever Man really wishes to do he will finally 

discover a means of doing Well, you 

have done your best, you virtuous ladies, and 

others of your way of thinking, to bend Man’s 

mind wholly towards honorable love as the 

highest good, and to understand by honorable 

love romance and beauty and happiness in the 

possession of beautiful, refined, delicate, affectionate 

women. You have taught women 

to value their own youth, health, shapeliness, 

and refinement above all things. Well, what 

place have squalling babies and household 

cares in this exquisite paradise of the senses 

and emotions Is it not the inevitable end of it 

all that the human will shall say to the human 

brain: Invent me a means by which I can have 

love, beauty, romance, emotion, passion without 

their wretched penalties, their expenses, 

their worries, their trials, their illnesses and 

agonies and risks of death, their retinue of 

servants and nurses and doctors and school-


masters. 

THE DEVIL. All this, Señor Don Juan, is 

realized here in my realm. 

DON JUAN. Yes, at the cost of death. Man 

will not take it at that price: he demands the 

romantic delights of your hell whilst he is still 

on earth. Well, the means will be found: the 

brain will not fail when the will is in earnest. 

The day is coming when great nations will 

find their numbers dwindling from census to 

census; when the six roomed villa will rise in 

price above the family mansion; when the viciously 

reckless poor and the stupidly pious 

rich will delay the extinction of the race only 

by degrading it; whilst the boldly prudent, the 

thriftily selfish and ambitious, the imaginative 

and poetic, the lovers of money and solid 

comfort, the worshippers of success, art, and 

of love, will all oppose to the Force of Life the 

device of sterility. 

THE STATUE. That is all very eloquent, 

my young friend; but if you had lived to Ana’s 

age, or even to mine, you would have learned 

that the people who get rid of the fear of 

poverty and children and all the other family 

troubles, and devote themselves to having a 

good time of it, only leave their minds free for 

the fear of old age and ugliness and impotence 

and death. The childless laborer is more tormented 

by his wife’s idleness and her constant 

demands for amusement and distraction than 

he could be by twenty children; and his wife is 

more wretched than he. I have had my share 

of vanity; for as a young man I was admired 

by women; and as a statue I am praised by art

ACT III 209 

critics. But I confess that had I found nothing 

to do in the world but wallow in these delights 

I should have cut my throat. When I married 

Ana’s mother—or perhaps, to be strictly correct, 

I should rather say when I at last gave 

in and allowed Ana’s mother to marry me—I 

knew that I was planting thorns in my pillow, 

and that marriage for me, a swaggering young 

officer thitherto unvanquished, meant defeat 

and capture. 

ANA. [scandalized] Father! 

THE STATUE. I am sorry to shock you, my 

love; but since Juan has stripped every rag of 

decency from the discussion I may as well tell 

the frozen truth. 

ANA. Hmf! I suppose I was one of the 

thorns. 

THE STATUE. By no means: you were often 

a rose. You see, your mother had most of 

the trouble you gave. 

DON JUAN. Then may I ask, Commander, 

why you have left Heaven to come here 

and wallow, as you express it, in sentimental 

beatitudes which you confess would once have 

driven you to cut your throat 

THE STATUE. [struck by this] Egad, that’s 

true. 

THE DEVIL. [alarmed] What! You are 

going back from your word. [To Don Juan] 

And all your philosophizing has been nothing 

but a mask for proselytizing! [To the Statue] 

Have you forgotten already the hideous dulness 

from which I am offering you a refuge 

here [To Don Juan] And does your demonstration 

of the approaching sterilization and


extinction of mankind lead to anything better 

than making the most of those pleasures of art 

and love which you yourself admit refined you, 

elevated you, developed you 

DON JUAN. I never demonstrated the extinction 

of mankind. Life cannot will its own 

extinction either in its blind amorphous state 

or in any of the forms into which it has organized 

itself. I had not finished when His Excellency 

interrupted me. 

THE STATUE. I begin to doubt whether 

you ever will finish, my friend. You are extremely 

fond of hearing yourself talk. 

DON JUAN. True; but since you have endured 

so much. you may as well endure to 

the end. Long before this sterilization which 

I described becomes more than a clearly foreseen 

possibility, the reaction will begin. The 

great central purpose of breeding the race, ay, 

breeding it to heights now deemed superhuman: 

that purpose which is now hidden in a 

mephitic cloud of love and romance and prudery 

and fastidiousness, will break through 

into clear sunlight as a purpose no longer to 

be confused with the gratification of personal 

fancies, the impossible realization of boys’ and 

girls’ dreams of bliss, or the need of older people 

for companionship or money. The plainspoken 

marriage services of the vernacular 

Churches will no longer be abbreviated and 

half suppressed as indelicate. The sober decency, 

earnestness and authority of their declaration 

of the real purpose of marriage will 

be honored and accepted, whilst their romantic 

vowings and pledgings and until-death-do-

ACT III 211 

us-partings and the like will be expunged as 

unbearable frivolities. Do my sex the justice 

to admit, Señora, that we have always recognized 

that the sex relation is not a personal or 

friendly relation at all. 

ANA. Not a personal or friendly relation! 

What relation is more personal more sacred 

more holy 

DON JUAN. Sacred and holy, if you like, 

Ana, but not personally friendly. Your relation 

to God is sacred and holy: dare you 

call it personally friendly In the sex relation 

the universal creative energy, of which 

the parties are both the helpless agents, overrides 

and sweeps away all personal considerations 

and dispenses with all personal relations. 

The pair may be utter strangers to one 

another, speaking different languages, differing 

in race and color, in age and disposition, 

with no bond between them but a possibility 

of that fecundity for the sake of which the Life 

Force throws them into one another’s arms at 

the exchange of a glance. Do we not recognize 

this by allowing marriages to be made by 

parents without consulting the woman Have 

you not often expressed your disgust at the 

immorality of the English nation, in which 

women and men of noble birth become acquainted 

and court each other like peasants 

And how much does even the peasant know of 

his bride or she of him before he engages himself 

Why, you would not make a man your 

lawyer or your family doctor on so slight an 

acquaintance as you would fall in love with 

and marry him!


ANA. Yes, Juan: we know the libertine’s 

philosophy. Always ignore the consequences 

to the woman. 

DON JUAN. The consequences, yes: they 

justify her fierce grip of the man. But surely 

you do not call that attachment a sentimental 

one. As well call the policeman’s attachment 

to his prisoner a love relation. 

ANA. You see you have to confess that marriage 

is necessary, though, according to you, 

love is the slightest of all the relations. 

DON JUAN. How do you know that it is 

not the greatest of all the relations far too 

great to be a personal matter. Could your father 

have served his country if he had refused 

to kill any enemy of Spain unless he personally 

hated him Can a woman serve her country 

if she refuses to marry any man she does 

not personally love You know it is not so: 

the woman of noble birth marries as the man 

of noble birth fights, on political and family 

grounds, not on personal ones. 

THE STATUE. [impressed] A very clever 

point that, Juan: I must think it over. You are 

really full of ideas. How did you come to think 

of this one 

DON JUAN. I learnt it by experience. 

When I was on earth, and made those proposals 

to ladies which, though universally condemned, 

have made me so interesting a hero 

of legend, I was not infrequently met in some 

such way as this. The lady would say that 

she would countenance my advances, provided 

they were honorable. On inquiring what 

that proviso meant, I found that it meant that

ACT III 213 

I proposed to get possession of her property if 

she had any, or to undertake her support for 

life if she had not; that I desired her continual 

companionship, counsel and conversation 

to the end of my days, and would bind myself 

under penalties to be always enraptured 

by them; and, above all, that I would turn 

my back on all other women for ever for her 

sake. I did not object to these conditions because 

they were exorbitant and inhuman: it 

was their extraordinary irrelevance that prostrated 

me. I invariably replied with perfect 

frankness that I had never dreamt of any of 

these things; that unless the lady’s character 

and intellect were equal or superior to my 

own, her conversation must degrade and her 

counsel mislead me; that her constant companionship 

might, for all I knew, become intolerably 

tedious to me; that I could not answer 

for my feelings for a week in advance, 

much less to the end of my life; that to cut 

me off from all natural and unconstrained relations 

with the rest of my fellow creatures 

would narrow and warp me if I submitted to 

it, and, if not, would bring me under the curse 

of clandestinity; that, finally, my proposals 

to her were wholly unconnected with any of 

these matters, and were the outcome of a perfectly 

simple impulse of my manhood towards 

her womanhood. 

ANA. You mean that it was an immoral impulse. 

DON JUAN. Nature, my dear lady, is what 

you call immoral. I blush for it; but I cannot 

help it. Nature is a pandar, Time a wrecker,


and Death a murderer. I have always preferred 

to stand up to those facts and build 

institutions on their recognition. You prefer 

to propitiate the three devils by proclaiming 

their chastity, their thrift, and their loving 

kindness; and to base your institutions on 

these flatteries. Is it any wonder that the institutions 

do not work smoothly 

THE STATUE. What used the ladies to 

say, Juan 

DON JUAN. Oh, come! Confidence for confidence. 

First tell me what you used to say to 

the ladies. 

THE STATUE. I! Oh, I swore that I would 

be faithful to the death; that I should die if 

they refused me; that no woman could ever be 

to me what she was— 

ANA. She Who 

THE STATUE. Whoever it happened to be 

at the time, my dear. I had certain things I 

always said. One of them was that even when 

I was eighty, one white hair of the woman I 

loved would make me tremble more than the 

thickest gold tress from the most beautiful 

young head. Another was that I could not bear 

the thought of anyone else being the mother of 

my children. 

DON JUAN. [revolted] You old rascal! 

THE STATUE. [Stoutly] Not a bit; for I really 

believed it with all my soul at the moment. 

I had a heart: not like you. And it was 

this sincerity that made me successful. 

DON JUAN. Sincerity! To be fool enough 

to believe a ramping, stamping, thumping lie: 

that is what you call sincerity! To be so greedy

ACT III 215 

for a woman that you deceive yourself in your 

eagerness to deceive her: sincerity, you call it! 

THE STATUE. Oh, damn your sophistries! 

I was a man in love, not a lawyer. And the 

women loved me for it, bless them! 

DON JUAN. They made you think so. 

What will you say when I tell you that though 

I played the lawyer so callously, they made me 

think so too I also had my moments of infatuation 

in which I gushed nonsense and believed 

it. Sometimes the desire to give pleasure by 

saying beautiful things so rose in me on the 

flood of emotion that I said them recklessly. 

At other times I argued against myself with a 

devilish coldness that drew tears. But I found 

it just as hard to escape in the one case as in 

the others. When the lady’s instinct was set 

on me, there was nothing for it but lifelong 

servitude or flight. 

ANA. You dare boast, before me and my father, 

that every woman found you irresistible. 

DON JUAN. Am I boasting It seems to 

me that I cut the most pitiable of figures. Besides, 

I said “when the lady’s instinct was set 

on me.” It was not always so; and then, heavens! 

what transports of virtuous indignation! 

what overwhelming defiance to the dastardly 

seducer! what scenes of Imogen and Iachimo! 

ANA. I made no scenes. I simply called my 

father. 

DON JUAN. And he came, sword in hand, 

to vindicate outraged honor and morality by 

murdering me. 

THE STATUE. Murdering! What do you 

mean Did I kill you or did you kill me


DON JUAN. Which of us was the better 

fencer 

THE STATUE. I was. 

DON JUAN. Of course you were. And yet 

you, the hero of those scandalous adventures 

you have just been relating to us, you had 

the effrontery to pose as the avenger of outraged 

morality and condemn me to death! You 

would have slain me but for an accident. 

THE STATUE. I was expected to, Juan. 

That is how things were arranged on earth. 

I was not a social reformer; and I always did 

what it was customary for a gentleman to do. 

DON JUAN. That may account for your attacking 

me, but not for the revolting hypocrisy 

of your subsequent proceedings as a statue. 

THE STATUE. That all came of my going 

to Heaven. 

THE DEVIL. I still fail to see, Señor Don 

Juan, that these episodes in your earthly career 

and in that of the Señor Commander in 

any way discredit my view of life. Here, I 

repeat, you have all that you sought without 

anything that you shrank from. 

DON JUAN. On the contrary, here I have 

everything that disappointed me without anything 

that I have not already tried and found 

wanting. I tell you that as long as I can 

conceive something better than myself I cannot 

be easy unless I am striving to bring 

it into existence or clearing the way for it. 

That is the law of my life. That is the 

working within me of Life’s incessant aspiration 

to higher organization, wider, deeper, 

intenser self-consciousness, and clearer self-

ACT III 217 

understanding. It was the supremacy of this 

purpose that reduced love for me to the mere 

pleasure of a moment, art for me to the mere 

schooling of my faculties, religion for me to a 

mere excuse for laziness, since it had set up 

a God who looked at the world and saw that 

it was good, against the instinct in me that 

looked through my eyes at the world and saw 

that it could be improved. I tell you that in the 

pursuit of my own pleasure, my own health, 

my own fortune, I have never known happiness. 

It was not love for Woman that delivered 

me into her hands: it was fatigue, exhaustion. 

When I was a child, and bruised my head 

against a stone, I ran to the nearest woman 

and cried away my pain against her apron. 

When I grew up, and bruised my soul against 

the brutalities and stupidities with which I 

had to strive, I did again just what I had done 

as a child. I have enjoyed, too, my rests, my 

recuperations, my breathing times, my very 

prostrations after strife; but rather would I be 

dragged through all the circles of the foolish 

Italian’s Inferno than through the pleasures 

of Europe. That is what has made this place 

of eternal pleasures so deadly to me. It is the 

absence of this instinct in you that makes you 

that strange monster called a Devil. It is the 

success with which you have diverted the attention 

of men from their real purpose, which 

in one degree or another is the same as mine, 

to yours, that has earned you the name of The 

Tempter. It is the fact that they are doing 

your will, or rather drifting with your want 

of will, instead of doing their own, that makes


them the uncomfortable, false, restless, artificial, 

petulant, wretched creatures they are. 

THE DEVIL. [mortified] Señor Don Juan: 

you are uncivil to my friends. 

DON JUAN. Pooh! why should I be civil 

to them or to you In this Palace of Lies a 

truth or two will not hurt you. Your friends 

are all the dullest dogs I know. They are not 

beautiful: they are only decorated. They are 

not clean: they are only shaved and starched. 

They are not dignified: they are only fashionably 

dressed. They are not educated: they 

are only college passmen. They are not religious: 

they are only pew-renters. They are not 

moral: they are only conventional. They are 

not virtuous: they are only cowardly. They are 

not even vicious: they are only “frail.” They 

are not artistic: they are only lascivious. They 

are not prosperous: they are only rich. They 

are not loyal, they are only servile; not dutiful, 

only sheepish; not public spirited, only 

patriotic; not courageous, only quarrelsome; 

not determined, only obstinate; not masterful, 

only domineering; not self-controlled, only obtuse; 

not self-respecting, only vain; not kind, 

only sentimental; not social, only gregarious; 

not considerate, only polite; not intelligent, 

only opinionated; not progressive, only factious; 

not imaginative, only superstitious; not 

just, only vindictive; not generous, only propitiatory; 

not disciplined, only cowed; and not 

truthful at all—liars every one of them, to the 

very backbone of their souls. 

THE STATUE. Your flow of words is simply 

amazing, Juan. How I wish I could have

ACT III 219 

talked like that to my soldiers. 

THE DEVIL. It is mere talk, though. It 

has all been said before; but what change has 

it ever made What notice has the world ever 

taken of it 

DON JUAN. Yes, it is mere talk. But why 

is it mere talk Because, my friend, beauty, 

purity, respectability, religion, morality, art, 

patriotism, bravery and the rest are nothing 

but words which I or anyone else can turn inside 

out like a glove. Were they realities, you 

would have to plead guilty to my indictment; 

but fortunately for your self-respect, my diabolical 

friend, they are not realities. As you 

say, they are mere words, useful for duping 

barbarians into adopting civilization, or the 

civilized poor into submitting to be robbed and 

enslaved. That is the family secret of the governing 

caste; and if we who are of that caste 

aimed at more Life for the world instead of 

at more power and luxury for our miserable 

selves, that secret would make us great. Now, 

since I, being a nobleman, am in the secret 

too, think how tedious to me must be your 

unending cant about all these moralistic figments, 

and how squalidly disastrous your sacrifice 

of your lives to them! If you even believed 

in your moral game enough to play it 

fairly, it would be interesting to watch; but 

you don’t: you cheat at every trick; and if your 

opponent outcheats you, you upset the table 

and try to murder him. 

THE DEVIL. On earth there may be some 

truth in this, because the people are uneducated 

and cannot appreciate my religion of


love and beauty; but here— 

DON JUAN. Oh yes: I know. Here there is 

nothing but love and beauty. Ugh! it is like 

sitting for all eternity at the first act of a fashionable 

play, before the complications begin. 

Never in my worst moments of superstitious 

terror on earth did I dream that Hell was so 

horrible. I live, like a hairdresser, in the continual 

contemplation of beauty, toying with 

silken tresses. I breathe an atmosphere of 

sweetness, like a confectioner’s shopboy. Commander: 

are there any beautiful women in 

Heaven 

THE STATUE. None. Absolutely none. All 

dowdies. Not two pennorth of jewellery among 

a dozen of them. They might be men of fifty. 

DON JUAN. I am impatient to get there. 

Is the word beauty ever mentioned; and are 

there any artistic people 

THE STATUE. I give you my word they 

won’t admire a fine statue even when it walks 

past them. 

DON JUAN. I go. 

THE DEVIL. Don Juan: shall I be frank 

with you 

DON JUAN. Were you not so before 

THE DEVIL. As far as I went, yes. But I 

will now go further, and confess to you that 

men get tired of everything, of heaven no less 

than of hell; and that all history is nothing 

but a record of the oscillations of the world between 

these two extremes. An epoch is but 

a swing of the pendulum; and each generation 

thinks the world is progressing because 

it is always moving. But when you are as

ACT III 221 

old as I am; when you have a thousand times 

wearied of heaven, like myself and the Commander, 

and a thousand times wearied of hell, 

as you are wearied now, you will no longer 

imagine that every swing from heaven to hell 

is an emancipation, every swing from hell to 

heaven an evolution. Where you now see 

reform, progress, fulfilment of upward tendency, 

continual ascent by Man on the stepping 

stones of his dead selves to higher things, 

you will see nothing but an infinite comedy of 

illusion. You will discover the profound truth 

of the saying of my friend Koheleth, that there 

is nothing new under the sun. Vanitas vanitatum— 

DON JUAN. [out of all patience] By 

Heaven, this is worse than your cant about 

love and beauty. Clever dolt that you are, is 

a man no better than a worm, or a dog than 

a wolf, because he gets tired of everything 

Shall he give up eating because he destroys 

his appetite in the act of gratifying it Is a 

field idle when it is fallow Can the Commander 

expend his hellish energy here without accumulating 

heavenly energy for his next term 

of blessedness Granted that the great Life 

Force has hit on the device of the clockmaker’s 

pendulum, and uses the earth for its bob; that 

the history of each oscillation, which seems so 

novel to us the actors, is but the history of the 

last oscillation repeated; nay more, that in the 

unthinkable infinitude of time the sun throws 

off the earth and catches it again a thousand 

times as a circus rider throws up a ball, and 

that the total of all our epochs is but the mo-


ment between the toss and the catch, has the 

colossal mechanism no purpose 

THE DEVIL. None, my friend. You think, 

because you have a purpose, Nature must 

have one. You might as well expect it to have 

fingers and toes because you have them. 

DON JUAN. But I should not have them 

if they served no purpose. And I, my friend, 

am as much a part of Nature as my own finger 

is a part of me. If my finger is the organ 

by which I grasp the sword and the mandoline, 

my brain is the organ by which Nature 

strives to understand itself. My dog’s brain 

serves only my dog’s purposes; but my brain 

labors at a knowledge which does nothing for 

me personally but make my body bitter to me 

and my decay and death a calamity. Were I 

not possessed with a purpose beyond my own 

I had better be a ploughman than a philosopher; 

for the ploughman lives as long as the 

philosopher, eats more, sleeps better, and rejoices 

in the wife of his bosom with less misgiving. 

This is because the philosopher is in 

the grip of the Life Force. This Life Force says 

to him “I have done a thousand wonderful 

things unconsciously by merely willing to live 

and following the line of least resistance: now 

I want to know myself and my destination, 

and choose my path; so I have made a special 

brain—a philosopher’s brain—to grasp this 

knowledge for me as the husbandman’s hand 

grasps the plough for me. “And this” says 

the Life Force to the philosopher “must thou 

strive to do for me until thou diest, when I will 

make another brain and another philosopher

ACT III 223 

to carry on the work.” 

THE DEVIL. What is the use of knowing 

DON JUAN. Why, to be able to choose the 

line of greatest advantage instead of yielding 

in the direction of the least resistance. Does a 

ship sail to its destination no better than a log 

drifts nowhither The philosopher is Nature’s 

pilot. And there you have our difference: to be 

in hell is to drift: to be in heaven is to steer. 

THE DEVIL. On the rocks, most likely. 

DON JUAN. Pooh! which ship goes oftenest 

on the rocks or to the bottom—the drifting 

ship or the ship with a pilot on board 

THE DEVIL. Well, well, go your way, 

Señor Don Juan. I prefer to be my own master 

and not the tool of any blundering universal 

force. I know that beauty is good to look at; 

that music is good to hear; that love is good 

to feel; and that they are all good to think 

about and talk about. I know that to be well 

exercised in these sensations, emotions, and 

studies is to be a refined and cultivated being. 

Whatever they may say of me in churches on 

earth, I know that it is universally admitted 

in good society that the prince of Darkness is 

a gentleman; and that is enough for me. As to 

your Life Force, which you think irresistible, 

it is the most resistible thing in the world for 

a person of any character. But if you are naturally 

vulgar and credulous, as all reformers 

are, it will thrust you first into religion, where 

you will sprinkle water on babies to save their 

souls from me; then it will drive you from 

religion into science, where you will snatch 

the babies from the water sprinkling and in-


oculate them with disease to save them from 

catching it accidentally; then you will take to 

politics, where you will become the catspaw 

of corrupt functionaries and the henchman of 

ambitious humbugs; and the end will be despair 

and decrepitude, broken nerve and shattered 

hopes, vain regrets for that worst and 

silliest of wastes and sacrifices, the waste and 

sacrifice of the power of enjoyment: in a word, 

the punishment of the fool who pursues the 

better before he has secured the good. 

DON JUAN. But at least I shall not be 

bored. The service of the Life Force has that 

advantage, at all events. So fare you well, 

Señor Satan. 

THE DEVIL. [amiably] Fare you well, Don 

Juan. I shall often think of our interesting 

chats about things in general. I wish you every 

happiness: Heaven, as I said before, suits 

some people. But if you should change your 

mind, do not forget that the gates are always 

open here to the repentant prodigal. If you 

feel at any time that warmth of heart, sincere 

unforced affection, innocent enjoyment, and 

warm, breathing, palpitating reality— 

DON JUAN. Why not say flesh and blood 

at once, though we have left those two greasy 

commonplaces behind us 

THE DEVIL. [angrily] You throw my 

friendly farewell back in my teeth, then, Don 

Juan 

DON JUAN. By no means. But though 

there is much to be learnt from a cynical devil, 

I really cannot stand a sentimental one. Señor 

Commander: you know the way to the frontier

ACT III 225 

of hell and heaven. Be good enough to direct 

me. 

THE STATUE. Oh, the frontier is only 

the difference between two ways of looking at 

things. Any road will take you across it if you 

really want to get there. 

DON JUAN. Good. [saluting Doña Ana] 

Señora: your servant. 

ANA. But I am going with you. 

DON JUAN. I can find my own way to 

heaven, Ana; but I cannot find yours [he vanishes]. 

ANA. How annoying! 

THE STATUE. [calling after him] Bon voyage, 

Juan! [He wafts a final blast of his great 

rolling chords after him as a parting salute. 

A faint echo of the first ghostly melody comes 

back in acknowledgment]. Ah! there he goes. 

[Puffing a long breath out through his lips] 

Whew! How he does talk! They’ll never stand 

it in heaven. 

THE DEVIL. [gloomily] His going is a political 

defeat. I cannot keep these Life Worshippers: 

they all go. This is the greatest loss 

I have had since that Dutch painter went—a 

fellow who would paint a hag of 70 with as 

much enjoyment as a Venus of 20. 

THE STATUE. I remember: he came to 

heaven. Rembrandt. 

THE DEVIL. Ay, Rembrandt. There a 

something unnatural about these fellows. Do 

not listen to their gospel, Señor Commander: 

it is dangerous. Beware of the pursuit of 

the Superhuman: it leads to an indiscriminate 

contempt for the Human. To a man, horses


and dogs and cats are mere species, outside 

the moral world. Well, to the Superman, men 

and women are a mere species too, also outside 

the moral world. This Don Juan was 

kind to women and courteous to men as your 

daughter here was kind to her pet cats and 

dogs; but such kindness is a denial of the exclusively 

human character of the soul. 

THE STATUE. And who the deuce is the 

Superman 

THE DEVIL. Oh, the latest fashion among 

the Life Force fanatics. Did you not meet in 

Heaven, among the new arrivals, that German 

Polish madman—what was his name 

Nietzsche 

THE STATUE. Never heard of him. 

THE DEVIL. Well, he came here first, before 

he recovered his wits. I had some hopes 

of him; but he was a confirmed Life Force worshipper. 

It was he who raked up the Superman, 

who is as old as Prometheus; and the 

20th century will run after this newest of the 

old crazes when it gets tired of the world, the 

flesh, and your humble servant. 

THE STATUE. Superman is a good cry; 

and a good cry is half the battle. I should like 

to see this Nietzsche. 

THE DEVIL. Unfortunately he met Wagner 

here, and had a quarrel with him. 

THE STATUE. Quite right, too. Mozart for 

me! 

THE DEVIL. Oh, it was not about music. 

Wagner once drifted into Life Force worship, 

and invented a Superman called Siegfried. 

But he came to his senses afterwards. So

ACT III 227 

when they met here, Nietzsche denounced 

him as a renegade; and Wagner wrote a pamphlet 

to prove that Nietzsche was a Jew; and 

it ended in Nietzsche’s going to heaven in a 

huff. And a good riddance too. And now, my 

friend, let us hasten to my palace and celebrate 

your arrival with a grand musical service. 

THE STATUE. With pleasure: you’re most 

kind. 

THE DEVIL. This way, Commander. We 

go down the old trap [he places himself on the 

grave trap]. 

THE STATUE. Good. [Reflectively] All the 

same, the Superman is a fine conception. 

There is something statuesque about it. [He 

places himself on the grave trap beside The 

Devil. It begins to descend slowly. Red glow 

from the abyss]. Ah, this reminds me of old 

times. 

THE DEVIL. And me also. 

ANA. Stop! [The trap stops]. 

THE DEVIL. You, Señora, cannot come 

this way. You will have an apotheosis. But 

you will be at the palace before us. 

ANA. That is not what I stopped you for. 

Tell me where can I find the Superman 

THE DEVIL. He is not yet created, Señora. 

THE STATUE. And never will be, probably. 

Let us proceed: the red fire will make me 

sneeze. [They descend]. 

ANA. Not yet created! Then my work is not 

yet done. [Crossing herself devoutly] I believe 

in the Life to Come. [Crying to the universe] A 

father—a father for the Superman!


She vanishes into the void; and again there 

is nothing: all existence seems suspended infinitely. 

Then, vaguely, there is a live human 

voice crying somewhere. One sees, with 

a shock, a mountain peak showing faintly 

against a lighter background. The sky has 

returned from afar; and we suddenly remember 

where we were. The cry becomes distinct 

and urgent: it says Automobile, Automobile. 

The complete reality comes back with a rush: 

in a moment it is full morning in the Sierra; 

and the brigands are scrambling to their feet 

and making for the road as the goatherd runs 

down from the hill, warning them of the approach 

of another motor. Tanner and Mendoza 

rise amazedly and stare at one another with 

scattered wits. Straker sits up to yawn for a 

moment before he gets on his feet, making it 

a point of honor not to show any undue interest 

in the excitement of the bandits. Mendoza 

gives a quick look to see that his followers are 

attending to the alarm; then exchanges a private 

word with Tanner. 

MENDOZA. Did you dream 

TANNER. Damnably. Did you 

MENDOZA. Yes. I forget what. You were 

in it. 

TANNER. So were you. Amazing 

MENDOZA. I warned you. [a shot is heard 

from the road]. Dolts! they will play with 

that gun. [The brigands come running back 

scared]. Who fired that shot [to Duval] Was 

it you 

DUVAL. [breathless] I have not shoot. Dey 

shoot first.

ACT III 229 

ANARCHIST. I told you to begin by abolishing 

the State. Now we are all lost. 


[stampeding across the amphitheatre] Run, 

everybody. 

MENDOZA. [collaring him; throwing him 

on his back; and drawing a knife] I stab the 

man who stirs. [He blocks the way. The stampede 

it checked]. What has happened 

THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT, A 

motor— 

THE ANARCHIST. Three men— 

DUVAL. Deux femmes— 

MENDOZA. Three men and two women! 

Why have you not brought them here Are 

you afraid of them 

THE ROWDY ONE. [getting up] Thyve a 

hescort. Ow, de-ooh lut’s ook it, Mendowza. 

THE SULKY ONE. Two armored cars full 

o soldiers at the end o the valley. 

ANARCHIST. The shot was fired in the air. 

It was a signal. 

Straker whistles his favorite air, which 

falls on the ears of the brigands like a funeral 

march. 

TANNER. It is not an escort, but an expedition 

to capture you. We were advised to wait 

for it; but I was in a hurry. 

THE ROWDY ONE. [in an agony of apprehension] 

And Ow my good Lord, ere we are, 

wytin for em! Lut’s tike to the mahntns. 

MENDOZA. Idiot, what do you know about 

the mountains Are you a Spaniard You 

would be given up by the first shepherd you 

met. Besides, we are already within range of


their rifles. 

THE ROWDY ONE. Bat— 

MENDOZA. Silence. Leave this to me. [To 

Tanner] Comrade: you will not betray us. 

STRAKER. Oo are you callin comrade 

MENDOZA. Last night the advantage was 

with me. The robber of the poor was at the 

mercy of the robber of the rich. You offered 

your hand: I took it. 

TANNER. I bring no charge against you, 

comrade. We have spent a pleasant evening 

with you: that is all. 

STRAKER. I gev my and to nobody, see 

MENDOZA. [turning on him impressively] 

Young man, if I am tried, I shall plead guilty, 

and explain what drove me from England, 

home and duty. Do you wish to have the respectable 

name of Straker dragged through 

the mud of a Spanish criminal court The police 

will search me. They will find Louisa’s 

portrait. It will be published in the illustrated 

papers. You blench. It will be your doing, remember. 

STRAKER. [with baffled rage] I don’t care 

about the court. It’s avin our name mixed up 

with yours that I object to, you blackmailin 

swine, you. 

MENDOZA. Language unworthy of 

Louisa’s brother! But no matter: you are 

muzzled: that is enough for us. [He turns to 

face his own men, who back uneasily across 

the amphitheatre towards the cave to take 

refuge behind him, as a fresh party, muffled 

for motoring, comes from the road in riotous 

spirits. Ann, who makes straight for Tanner,

ACT III 231 

comes first; then Violet, helped over the rough 

ground by Hector holding her right hand and 

Ramsden her left. Mendoza goes to his presidential 

block and seats himself calmly with 

his rank and file grouped behind him, and his 

Staff, consisting of Duval and the Anarchist 

on his right and the two Social-Democrats on 

his left, supporting him in flank]. 

ANN. It’s Jack! 

TANNER. Caught! 

HECTOR. Why, certainly it is. I said it 

was you, Tanner, We’ve just been stopped by 

a puncture: the road is full of nails. 

VIOLET. What are you doing here with all 

these men 

ANN. Why did you leave us without a word 

of warning 

HECTOR. I want that bunch of roses, Miss 

Whitefield. [To Tanner] When we found you 

were gone, Miss Whitefield bet me a bunch of 

roses my car would not overtake yours before 

you reached Monte Carlo. 

TANNER. But this is not the road to Monte 

Carlo. 

HECTOR. No matter. Miss Whitefield 

tracked you at every stopping place: she is a 

regular Sherlock Holmes. 

TANNER. The Life Force! I am lost. 

OCTAVIUS. [Bounding gaily down from 

the road into the amphitheatre, and coming 

between Tanner and Straker] I am so glad you 

are safe, old chap. We were afraid you had 

been captured by brigands. 

RAMSDEN. [who has been staring at Mendoza] 

I seem to remember the face of your


friend here. [Mendoza rises politely and advances 

with a smile between Ann and Ramsden]. 

HECTOR. Why, so do I. 

OCTAVIUS. I know you perfectly well, Sir; 

but I can’t think where I have met you. 

MENDOZA. [to Violet] Do you remember 

me, madam 

VIOLET. Oh, quite well; but I am so stupid 

about names. 

MENDOZA. It was at the Savoy Hotel. [To 

Hector] You, sir, used to come with this lady 

[Violet] to lunch. [To Octavius] You, sir, often 

brought this lady [Ann] and her mother 

to dinner on your way to the Lyceum Theatre. 

[To Ramsden] You, sir, used to come to supper, 

with [dropping his voice to a confidential 

but perfectly audible whisper] several different 

ladies. 

RAMSDEN. [angrily] Well, what is that to 

you, pray 

OCTAVIUS. Why, Violet, I thought you 

hardly knew one another before this trip, you 

and Malone! 

VIOLET. [vexed] I suppose this person was 

the manager. 

MENDOZA. The waiter, madam. I have 

a grateful recollection of you all. I gathered 

from the bountiful way in which you treated 

me that you all enjoyed your visits very much. 

VIOLET. What impertinence! [She turns 

her back on him, and goes up the hill with Hector]. 

RAMSDEN. That will do, my friend. You 

do not expect these ladies to treat you as an

ACT III 233 

acquaintance, I suppose, because you have 

waited on them at table. 

MENDOZA. Pardon me: it was you who 

claimed my acquaintance. The ladies followed 

your example. However, this display of the 

unfortunate manners of your class closes the 

incident. For the future, you will please address 

me with the respect due to a stranger 

and fellow traveller. [He turns haughtily away 

and resumes his presidential seat]. 

TANNER. There! I have found one man 

on my journey capable of reasonable conversation; 

and you all instinctively insult him. 

Even the New Man is as bad as any of you. 

Enry: you have behaved just like a miserable 

gentleman. 

STRAKER. Gentleman! Not me. 

RAMSDEN. Really, Tanner, this tone— 

ANN. Don’t mind him, Granny: you ought 

to know him by this time [she takes his arm 

and coaxes him away to the hill to join Violet 

and Hector. Octavius follows her, doglike]. 

VIOLET. [calling from the hill] Here are 

the soldiers. They are getting out of their motors. 

DUVAL. [panicstricken] Oh, nom de Dieu! 

THE ANARCHIST. Fools: the State is 

about to crush you because you spared it at 

the prompting of the political hangers-on of 

the bourgeoisie. 

THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [argumentative 

to the last] On the contrary, only 

by capturing the State machine— 

THE ANARCHIST. It is going to capture 

you.


THE ROWDY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [his 

anguish culminating] Ow, chock it. Wot are 

we ere for Wot are we wytin for 

MENDOZA. [between his teeth] Go on. 

Talk politics, you idiots: nothing sounds more 

respectable. Keep it up, I tell you. 

The soldiers line the road, commanding the 

amphitheatre with their rifles. The brigands, 

struggling with an over-whelming impulse to 

hide behind one another, look as unconcerned 

as they can. Mendoza rises superbly, with undaunted 

front. The officer in command steps 

down from the road in to the amphitheatre; 

looks hard at the brigands; and then inquiringly 

at Tanner. 

THE OFFICER. Who are these men, Señor 

Ingles 

TANNER. My escort. 

Mendoza, with a Mephistophelean smile, 

bows profoundly. An irrepressible grin runs 

from face to face among the brigands. They 

touch their hats, except the Anarchist, who defies 

the State with folded arms.

ACT IV 

The garden of a villa in Granada. Whoever 

wishes to know what it is like must go to 

Granada and see. One may prosaically specify 

a group of hills dotted with villas, the Alhambra 

on the top of one of the hills, and a 

considerable town in the valley, approached by 

dusty white roads in which the children, no 

matter what they are doing or thinking about, 

automatically whine for halfpence and reach 

out little clutching brown palms for them; but 

there is nothing in this description except the 

A1hambra, the begging, and the color of the 

roads, that does not fit Surrey as well as 

Spain. The difference is that the Surrey hills 

are comparatively small and ugly, and should 

properly be called the Surrey Protuberances; 

but these Spanish hills are of mountain stock: 

the amenity which conceals their size does not 

compromise their dignity. 

This particular garden is on a hill opposite 

the Alhambra; and the villa is as expensive 

and pretentious as a villa must be if it 

is to be let furnished by the week to opulent 

American and English visitors. If we stand on 

the lawn at the foot of the garden and look up- 

235


hill, our horizon is the stone balustrade of a 

flagged platform on the edge of infinite space 

at the top of the hill. Between us and this platform 

is a flower garden with a circular basin 

and fountain in the centre, surrounded by geometrical 

flower beds, gravel paths, and clipped 

yew trees in the genteelest order. The garden 

is higher than our lawn; so we reach it by 

a few steps in the middle of its embankment. 

The platform is higher again than the garden, 

from which we mount a couple more steps to 

look over the balustrade at a fine view of the 

town up the valley and of the hills that stretch 

away beyond it to where, in the remotest distance, 

they become mountains. On our left is 

the villa, accessible by steps from the left hand 

corner of the garden. Returning from the platform 

through the garden and down again to 

the lawn (a movement which leaves the villa 

behind us on our right) we find evidence of literary 

interests on the part of the tenants in the 

fact that there is no tennis net nor set of croquet 

hoops, but, on our left, a little iron garden 

table with books on it, mostly yellow-backed, 

and a chair beside it. A chair on the right has 

also a couple of open books upon it. There are 

no newspapers, a circumstance which, with 

the absence of games, might lead an intelligent 

spectator to the most far reaching conclusions 

as to the sort of people who live in the 

villa. Such speculations are checked, however, 

on this delightfully fine afternoon, by the appearance 

at a little gate in a paling an our 

left, of Henry Straker in his professional costume. 

He opens the gate for an elderly gentle-

ACT IV 237 

man, and follows him on to the lawn. 

This elderly gentleman defies the Spanish 

sun in a black frock coat, tall silk bat, 

trousers in which narrow stripes of dark grey 

and lilac blend into a highly respectable color, 

and a black necktie tied into a bow over spotless 

linen. Probably therefore a man whose 

social position needs constant and scrupulous 

affirmation without regard to climate: one who 

would dress thus for the middle of the Sahara 

or the top of Mont Blanc. And since he has 

not the stamp of the class which accepts as its 

life-mission the advertizing and maintenance 

of first rate tailoring and millinery, he looks 

vulgar in his finery, though in a working dress 

of any kind he would look dignified enough. 

He is a bullet cheeked man with a red complexion, 

stubbly hair, smallish eyes, a hard 

mouth that folds down at the corners, and a 

dogged chin. The looseness of skin that comes 

with age has attacked his throat and the laps 

of his cheeks; but he is still hard as an apple 

above the mouth; so that the upper half 

of his face looks younger than the lower. He 

has the self-confidence of one who has made 

money, and something of the truculence of one 

who has made it in a brutalizing struggle, his 

civility having under it a perceptible menace 

that he has other methods in reserve if necessary. 

Withal, a man to be rather pitied when 

he is not to be feared; for there is something 

pathetic about him at times, as if the huge 

commercial machine which has worked him 

into his frock coat had allowed him very little 

of his own way and left his affections hungry


and baffled. At the first word that falls from 

him it is clear that he is an Irishman whose 

native intonation has clung to him through 

many changes of place and rank. One can 

only guess that the original material of his 

speech was perhaps the surly Kerry brogue; 

but the degradation of speech that occurs in 

London, Glasgow, Dublin and big cities generally 

has been at work on it so long that nobody 

but an arrant cockney would dream of 

calling it a brogue now; for its music is almost 

gone, though its surliness is still perceptible. 

Straker, as a very obvious cockney, 

inspires him with implacable contempt, as a 

stupid Englishman who cannot even speak his 

own language properly. Straker, on the other 

hand, regards the old gentleman’s accent as a 

joke thoughtfully provided by Providence expressly 

for the amusement of the British race, 

and treats him normally with the indulgence 

due to an inferior and unlucky species, but occasionally 

with indignant alarm when the old 

gentleman shows signs of intending his Irish 

nonsense to be taken seriously. 

STRAKER. I’ll go tell the young lady. She 

said you’d prefer to stay here [he turns to go 

up through the garden to the villa]. 

MALONE. [who has been looking round 

him with lively curiosity] The young lady 

That’s Miss Violet, eh 

STRAKER. [stopping on the steps with 

sudden suspicion] Well, you know, don’t you 

MALONE. Do I 

STRAKER. [his temper rising] Well, do you 

or don’t you

ACT IV 239 

MALONE. What business is that of yours 

Straker, now highly indignant, comes back 

from the steps and confronts the visitor. 

STRAKER. I’ll tell you what business it is 

of mine. Miss Robinson— 

MALONE. [interrupting] Oh, her name is 

Robinson, is it Thank you. 

STRAKER. Why, you don’t know even her 

name 

MALONE. Yes I do, now that you’ve told 

me. 

STRAKER. [after a moment of stupefaction 

at the old man’s readiness in repartee] Look 

here: what do you mean by gittin into my car 

and lettin me bring you here if you’re not the 

person I took that note to 

MALONE. Who else did you take it to, 

pray 

STRAKER. I took it to Mr. Ector Malone, 

at Miss Robinson’s request, see Miss Robinson 

is not my principal: I took it to oblige her. 

I know Mr. Malone; and he ain’t you, not by 

a long chalk. At the hotel they told me that 

your name is Ector Malone. 

MALONE. Hector Malone. 

STRAKER. [with calm superiority] Hector 

in your own country: that’s what comes o livin 

in provincial places like Ireland and America. 

Over here you’re Ector: if you avn’t noticed it 

before you soon will. 

The growing strain of the conversation is 

here relieved by Violet, who has sallied from 

the villa and through the garden to the steps, 

which she now descends, coming very opportunely 

between Malone and Straker.


VIOLET. [to Straker] Did you take my message 

STRAKER. Yes, miss. I took it to the hotel 

and sent it up, expecting to see young Mr. Malone. 

Then out walks this gent, and says it’s all 

right and he’ll come with me. So as the hotel 

people said he was Mr. Ector Malone, I fetched 

him. And now he goes back on what he said. 

But if he isn’t the gentleman you meant, say 

the word: it’s easy enough to fetch him back 

again. 

MALONE. I should esteem it a great favor 

if I might have a short conversation with you, 

madam. I am Hector’s father, as this bright 

Britisher would have guessed in the course of 

another hour or so. 

STRAKER. [coolly defiant] No, not in another 

year or so. When we’ve ad you as long to 

polish up as we’ve ad im, perhaps you’ll begin 

to look a little bit up to is mark. At present 

you fall a long way short. You’ve got too many 

aitches, for one thing. [To Violet, amiably] All 

right, Miss: you want to talk to him: I shan’t 

intrude. [He nods affably to Malone and goes 

out through the little gate in the paling]. 

VIOLET. [very civilly] I am so sorry, Mr. 

Malone, if that man has been rude to you. But 

what can we do He is our chauffeur. 

MALONE. Your what 

VIOLET. The driver of our automobile. He 

can drive a motor car at seventy miles an 

hour, and mend it when it breaks down. We 

are dependent on our motor cars; and our motor 

cars are dependent on him; so of course we 

are dependent on him.

ACT IV 241 

MALONE. I’ve noticed, madam, that every 

thousand dollars an Englishman gets seems 

to add one to the number of people he’s dependent 

on. However, you needn’t apologize for 

your man: I made him talk on purpose. By 

doing so I learnt that you’re staying here in 

Grannida with a party of English, including 

my son Hector. 

VIOLET. [conversationally] Yes. We intended 

to go to Nice; but we had to follow 

a rather eccentric member of our party who 

started first and came here. Won’t you sit 

down [She clears the nearest chair of the two 

books on it]. 

MALONE. [impressed by this attention] 

Thank you. [He sits down, examining her curiously 

as she goes to the iron table to put down 

the books. When she turns to him again, he 

says] Miss Robinson, I believe 

VIOLET. [sitting down] Yes. 

MALONE. [Taking a letter from his pocket] 

Your note to Hector runs as follows [Violet is 

unable to repress a start. He pauses quietly to 

take out and put on his spectacles, which have 

gold rims]: “Dearest: they have all gone to the 

Alhambra for the afternoon. I have shammed 

headache and have the garden all to myself. 

Jump into Jack’s motor: Straker will rattle 

you here in a jiffy. Quick, quick, quick. Your 

loving Violet.” [He looks at her; but by this 

time she has recovered herself, and meets his 

spectacles with perfect composure. He continues 

slowly] Now I don’t know on what terms 

young people associate in English society; but 

in America that note would be considered to


imply a very considerable degree of affectionate 

intimacy between the parties. 

VIOLET. Yes: I know your son very well, 

Mr. Malone. Have you any objection 

MALONE. [somewhat taken aback] No, no 

objection exactly. Provided it is understood 

that my son is altogether dependent on me, 

and that I have to be consulted in any important 

step he may propose to take. 

VIOLET. I am sure you would not be unreasonable 

with him, Mr. Malone. 

MALONE. I hope not, Miss Robinson; but 

at your age you might think many things unreasonable 

that don’t seem so to me. 

VIOLET. [with a little shrug] Oh well, I 

suppose there’s no use our playing at cross 

purposes, Mr. Malone. Hector wants to marry 

me. 

MALONE. I inferred from your note that 

he might. Well, Miss Robinson, he is his own 

master; but if he marries you he shall not 

have a rap from me. [He takes off his spectacles 

and pockets them with the note]. 

VIOLET. [with some severity] That is not 

very complimentary to me, Mr. Malone. 

MALONE. I say nothing against you, Miss 

Robinson: I daresay you are an amiable and 

excellent young lady. But I have other views 

for Hector. 

VIOLET. Hector may not have other views 

for himself, Mr. Malone. 

MALONE. Possibly not. Then he does 

without me: that’s all. I daresay you are prepared 

for that. When a young lady writes to a 

young man to come to her quick, quick, quick,

ACT IV 243 

money seems nothing and love seems everything. 

VIOLET. [sharply] I beg your pardon, Mr. 

Malone: I do not think anything so foolish. 

Hector must have money. 

MALONE. [staggered] Oh, very well, very 

well. No doubt he can work for it. 

VIOLET. What is the use of having money 

if you have to work for it [She rises impatiently]. 

It’s all nonsense, Mr. Malone: you 

must enable your son to keep up his position. 

It is his right. 

MALONE. [grimly] I should not advise you 

to marry him on the strength of that right, 

Miss Robinson. 

Violet, who has almost lost her temper, controls 

herself with an effort; unclenches her fingers; 

and resumes her seat with studied tranquillity 

and reasonableness. 

VIOLET. What objection have you to me, 

pray My social position is as good as Hector’s, 

to say the least. He admits it. 

MALONE. [shrewdly] You tell him so from 

time to time, eh Hector’s social position in 

England, Miss Robinson, is just what I choose 

to buy for him. I have made him a fair offer. 

Let him pick out the most historic house, castle 

or abbey that England contains. The day 

that he tells me he wants it for a wife worthy 

of its traditions, I buy it for him, and give him 

the means of keeping it up. 

VIOLET. What do you mean by a wife worthy 

of its traditions Cannot any well bred 

woman keep such a house for him 

MALONE. No: she must be born to it.


VIOLET. Hector was not born to it, was he 

MALONE. His granmother was a barefooted 

Irish girl that nursed me by a turf fire. 

Let him marry another such, and I will not 

stint her marriage portion. Let him raise himself 

socially with my money or raise somebody 

else so long as there is a social profit somewhere, 

I’ll regard my expenditure as justified. 

But there must be a profit for someone. A marriage 

with you would leave things just where 

they are. 

VIOLET. Many of my relations would object 

very much to my marrying the grandson 

of a common woman, Mr. Malone. That may 

be prejudice; but so is your desire to have him 

marry a title prejudice. 

MALONE. [rising, and approaching her 

with a scrutiny in which there is a good deal of 

reluctant respect] You seem a pretty straightforward 

downright sort of a young woman. 

VIOLET. I do not see why I should be made 

miserably poor because I cannot make profits 

for you. Why do you want to make Hector unhappy 

MALONE. He will get over it all right 

enough. Men thrive better on disappointments 

in love than on disappointments in 

money. I daresay you think that sordid; but 

I know what I’m talking about. My father 

died of starvation in Ireland in the black 47. 

Maybe you’ve heard of it. 

VIOLET. The Famine 

MALONE. [with smouldering passion] No, 

the starvation. When a country is full of food, 

and exporting it, there can be no famine. My

ACT IV 245 

father was starved dead; and I was starved 

out to America in my mother’s arms. English 

rule drove me and mine out of Ireland. Well, 

you can keep Ireland. I and my like are coming 

back to buy England; and we’ll buy the 

best of it. I want no middle class properties 

and no middle class women for Hector. That’s 

straightforward isn’t it, like yourself 

VIOLET. [icily pitying his sentimentality] 

Really, Mr. Malone, I am astonished to hear 

a man of your age and good sense talking in 

that romantic way. Do you suppose English 

noblemen will sell their places to you for the 

asking 

MALONE. I have the refusal of two of the 

oldest family mansions in England. One historic 

owner can’t afford to keep all the rooms 

dusted: the other can’t afford the death duties. 

What do you say now 

VIOLET. Of course it is very scandalous; 

but surely you know that the Government will 

sooner or later put a stop to all these Socialistic 

attacks on property. 

MALONE. [grinning] D’y’ think they’ll 

be able to get that done before I buy the 

house—or rather the abbey They’re both 

abbeys. 

VIOLET. [putting that aside rather impatiently] 

Oh, well, let us talk sense, Mr. Malone. 

You must feel that we haven’t been talking 

sense so far. 

MALONE. I can’t say I do. I mean all I say. 

VIOLET. Then you don’t know Hector as I 

do. He is romantic and faddy—he gets it from 

you, I fancy—and he wants a certain sort of


wife to take care of him. Not a faddy sort of 

person, you know. 

MALONE. Somebody like you, perhaps 

VIOLET. [quietly] Well, yes. But you cannot 

very well ask me to undertake this with 

absolutely no means of keeping up his position. 

MALONE. [alarmed] Stop a bit, stop a bit. 

Where are we getting to I’m not aware that 

I’m asking you to undertake anything. 

VIOLET. Of course, Mr. Malone, you can 

make it very difficult for me to speak to you if 

you choose to misunderstand me. 

MALONE. [half bewildered] I don’t wish to 

take any unfair advantage; but we seem to 

have got off the straight track somehow. 

Straker, with the air of a man who has been 

making haste, opens the little gate, and admits 

Hector, who, snorting with indignation, comes 

upon the lawn, and is making for his father 

when Violet, greatly dismayed, springs up and 

intercepts him. Straker does not wait; at least 

he does not remain visibly within earshot. 

VIOLET. Oh, how unlucky! Now please, 

Hector, say nothing. Go away until I have finished 

speaking to your father. 

HECTOR. [inexorably] No, Violet: I mean 

to have this thing out, right away. [He puts 

her aside; passes her by; and faces his father, 

whose cheeks darken as his Irish blood begins 

to simmer]. Dad: you’ve not played this hand 

straight. 

MALONE. Hwat d’y’mean 

HECTOR. You’ve opened a letter addressed 

to me. You’ve impersonated me and

ACT IV 247 

stolen a march on this lady. That’s dishonorable. 

MALONE. [threateningly] Now you take 

care what you’re saying, Hector. Take care, 

I tell you. 

HECTOR. I have taken care. I am taking 

care. I’m taking care of my honor and my position 

in English society. 

MALONE. [hotly] Your position has been 

got by my money: do you know that 

HECTOR. Well, you’ve just spoiled it all by 

opening that letter. A letter from an English 

lady, not addressed to you—a confidential letter! 

a delicate letter! a private letter opened by 

my father! That’s a sort of thing a man can’t 

struggle against in England. The sooner we go 

back together the better. [He appeals mutely to 

the heavens to witness the shame and anguish 

of two outcasts]. 

VIOLET. [snubbing him with an instinctive 

dislike for scene making] Don’t be unreasonable, 

Hector. It was quite natural of Mr. 

Malone to open my letter: his name was on 

the envelope. 

MALONE. There! You’ve no common 

sense, Hector. I thank you, Miss Robinson. 

HECTOR. I thank you, too. It’s very kind 

of you. My father knows no better. 

MALONE. [furiously clenching his fists] 

Hector— 

HECTOR. [with undaunted moral force] 

Oh, it’s no use hectoring me. A private letter’s 

a private letter, dad: you can’t get over that. 

MALONE [raising his voice] I won’t be 

talked back to by you, d’y’ hear


VIOLET. Ssh! please, please. Here they all 

come. 

Father and son, checked, glare mutely at 

one another as Tanner comes in through the 

little gate with Ramsden, followed by Octavius 

and Ann. 

VIOLET. Back already! 

TANNER. The Alhambra is not open this 

afternoon. 

VIOLET. What a sell! 

Tanner passes on, and presently finds himself 

between Hector and a strange elder, both 

apparently on the verge of personal combat. 

He looks from one to the other for an explanation. 

They sulkily avoid his eye, and nurse 

their wrath in silence. 

RAMSDEN. Is it wise for you to be out in 

the sunshine with such a headache, Violet 

TANNER. Have you recovered too, Malone 

VIOLET. Oh, I forgot. We have not all met 

before. Mr. Malone: won’t you introduce your 

father 

HECTOR. [with Roman firmness] No, I 

will not. He is no father of mine. 

MALONE. [very angry] You disown your 

dad before your English friends, do you 

VIOLET. Oh please don’t make a scene. 

Ann and Octavius, lingering near the gate, 

exchange an astonished glance, and discreetly 

withdraw up the steps to the garden, where 

they can enjoy the disturbance without intruding. 

On their way to the steps Ann sends a little 

grimace of mute sympathy to Violet, who is 

standing with her back to the little table, look-

ACT IV 249 

ing on in helpless annoyance as her husband 

soars to higher and higher moral eminences 

without the least regard to the old man’s millions. 

HECTOR. I’m very sorry, Miss Robinson; 

but I’m contending for a principle. I am a 

son, and, I hope, a dutiful one; but before everything 

I’m a Man!!! And when dad treats 

my private letters as his own, and takes it on 

himself to say that I shan’t marry you if I am 

happy and fortunate enough to gain your consent, 

then I just snap my fingers and go my 

own way. 

TANNER. Marry Violet! 

RAMSDEN. Are you in your senses 

TANNER. Do you forget what we told you 

HECTOR. [recklessly] I don’t care what 

you told me. 

RAMSDEN. [scandalized] Tut tut, sir! 

Monstrous! [he flings away towards the gate, 

his elbows quivering with indignation] 

TANNER. Another madman! These men 

in love should be locked up. [He gives Hector 

up as hopeless, and turns away towards the 

garden, but Malone, taking offence in a new 

direction, follows him and compels him, by the 

aggressivenes of his tone, to stop]. 

MALONE. I don’t understand this. Is Hector 

not good enough for this lady, pray 

TANNER. My dear sir, the lady is married 

already. Hector knows it; and yet he persists 

in his infatuation. Take him home and lock 

him up. 

MALONE. [bitterly] So this is the highborn 

social tone I’ve spoilt by my ignorant,


uncultivated behavior! Makin love to a married 

woman! [He comes angrily between Hector 

and Violet, and almost bawls into Hector’s 

left ear] You’ve picked up that habit of the 

British aristocracy, have you 

HECTOR. That’s all right. Don’t you trouble 

yourself about that. I’ll answer for the 

morality of what I’m doing. 

TANNER. [coming forward to Hector’s 

right hand with flashing eyes] Well said, Malone! 

You also see that mere marriage laws are 

not morality! I agree with you; but unfortunately 

Violet does not. 

MALONE. I take leave to doubt that, sir. 

[Turning on Violet] Let me tell you, Mrs. 

Robinson, or whatever your right name is, you 

had no right to send that letter to my son 

when you were the wife of another man. 

HECTOR. [outraged] This is the last straw. 

Dad: you have insulted my wife. 

MALONE. Your wife! 

TANNER. You the missing husband! Another 

moral impostor! [He smites his brow, 

and collapses into Malone’s chair]. 

MALONE. You’ve married without my consent! 

RAMSDEN. You have deliberately humbugged 

us, sir! 

HECTOR. Here: I have had just about 

enough of being badgered. Violet and I are 

married: that’s the long and the short of it. 

Now what have you got to say—any of you 

MALONE. I know what I’ve got to say. 

She’s married a beggar. 

HECTOR. No; she’s married a Worker

ACT IV 251 

[his American pronunciation imparts an overwhelming 

intensity to this simple and unpopular 

word]. I start to earn my own living this 

very afternoon. 

MALONE. [sneering angrily] Yes: you’re 

very plucky now, because you got your remittance 

from me yesterday or this morning, I 

reckon. Wait til it’s spent. You won’t be so 

full of cheek then. 

HECTOR. [producing a letter from his 

pocketbook] Here it is [thrusting it on his father]. 

Now you just take your remittance and 

yourself out of my life. I’m done with remittances; 

and I’m done with you. I don’t sell the 

privilege of insulting my wife for a thousand 

dollars. 

MALONE. [deeply wounded and full of 

concern] Hector: you don’t know what poverty 

is. 

HECTOR. [fervidly] Well, I want to know 

what it is. I want’be a Man. Violet: you come 

along with me, to your own home: I’ll see you 

through. 

OCTAVIUS. [jumping down from the garden 

to the lawn and running to Hector’s left 

hand] I hope you’ll shake hands with me before 

you go, Hector. I admire and respect you 

more than I can say. [He is affected almost to 

tears as they shake hands]. 

VIOLET. [also almost in tears, but of vexation] 

Oh don’t be an idiot, Tavy. Hector’s about 

as fit to become a workman as you are. 

TANNER. [rising from his chair on the 

other ride of Hector] Never fear: there’s no 

question of his becoming a navvy, Mrs. Mal-


one. [To Hector] There’s really no difficulty 

about capital to start with. Treat me as a 

friend: draw on me. 

OCTAVIUS. [impulsively] Or on me. 

MALONE. [with fierce jealousy] Who 

wants your dirty money Who should he draw 

on but his own father [Tanner and Octavius 

recoil, Octavius rather hurt, Tanner consoled 

by the solution of the money difficulty. Violet 

looks up hopefully]. Hector: don’t be rash, my 

boy. I’m sorry for what I said: I never meant 

to insult Violet: I take it all back. She’s just 

the wife you want: there! 

HECTOR. [Patting him on the shoulder] 

Well, that’s all right, dad. Say no more: we’re 

friends again. Only, I take no money from 

anybody. 

MALONE. [pleading abjectly] Don’t be 

hard on me, Hector. I’d rather you quarrelled 

and took the money than made friends and 

starved. You don’t know what the world is: 

I do. 

HECTOR. No, no, no. That’s fixed: that’s 

not going to change. [He passes his father inexorably 

by, and goes to Violet]. Come, Mrs. Malone: 

you’ve got to move to the hotel with me, 

and take your proper place before the world. 

VIOLET. But I must go in, dear, and tell 

Davis to pack. Won’t you go on and make 

them give you a room overlooking the garden 

for me I’ll join you in half an hour. 

HECTOR. Very well. You’ll dine with us, 

Dad, won’t you 

MALONE. [eager to conciliate him] Yes, 

yes.

ACT IV 253 

HECTOR. See you all later. [He waves his 

hand to Ann, who has now been joined by Tanner, 

Octavius, and Ramsden in the garden, 

and goes out through the little gate, leaving his 

father and Violet together on the lawn]. 

MALONE. You’ll try to bring him to his 

senses, Violet: I know you will. 

VIOLET. I had no idea he could be so headstrong. 

If he goes on like that, what can I do 

MALONE. Don’t be discurridged: domestic 

pressure may be slow; but it’s sure. You’ll 

wear him down. Promise me you will. 

VIOLET. I will do my best. Of course I 

think it’s the greatest nonsense deliberately 

making us poor like that. 

MALONE. Of course it is. 

VIOLET. [after a moment’s reflection] You 

had better give me the remittance. He will 

want it for his hotel bill. I’ll see whether I can 

induce him to accept it. Not now, of course, 

but presently. 

MALONE. [eagerly] Yes, yes, yes: that’s 

just the thing [he hands her the thousand dollar 

bill, and adds cunningly] Y’understand 

that this is only a bachelor allowance. 

VIOLET. [Coolly] Oh, quite. [She takes it]. 

Thank you. By the way, Mr. Malone, those two 

houses you mentioned—the abbeys. 

MALONE. Yes 

VIOLET. Don’t take one of them until I’ve 

seen it. One never knows what may be wrong 

with these places. 

MALONE. I won’t. I’ll do nothing without 

consulting you, never fear. 

VIOLET. [politely, but without a ray of


gratitude] Thanks: that will be much the best 

way. [She goes calmly back to the villa, escorted 

obsequiously by Malone to the upper 

end of the garden]. 

TANNER. [drawing Ramsden’s attention 

to Malone’s cringing attitude as he takes leave 

of Violet] And that poor devil is a billionaire! 

one of the master spirits of the age! Led on a 

string like a pug dog by the first girl who takes 

the trouble to despise him. I wonder will it 

ever come to that with me. [He comes down to 

the lawn.] 

RAMSDEN. [following him] The sooner 

the better for you. 

MALONE. [clapping his hands as he returns 

through the garden] That’ll be a grand 

woman for Hector. I wouldn’t exchange her for 

ten duchesses. [He descends to the lawn and 

comes between Tanner and Ramsden]. 

RAMSDEN. [very civil to the billionaire] 

It’s an unexpected pleasure to find you in this 

corner of the world, Mr. Malone. Have you 

come to buy up the Alhambra 

MALONE. Well, I don’t say I mightn’t. I 

think I could do better with it than the Spanish 

government. But that’s not what I came 

about. To tell you the truth, about a month 

ago I overheard a deal between two men over 

a bundle of shares. They differed about the 

price: they were young and greedy, and didn’t 

know that if the shares were worth what was 

bid for them they must be worth what was 

asked, the margin being too small to be of 

any account, you see. To amuse meself, I 

cut in and bought the shares. Well, to this

ACT IV 255 

day I haven’t found out what the business is. 

The office is in this town; and the name is 

Mendoza, Limited. Now whether Mendoza’s 

a mine, or a steamboat line, or a bank, or a 

patent article— 

TANNER. He’s a man. I know him: his 

principles are thoroughly commercial. Let us 

take you round the town in our motor, Mr. 

Malone, and call on him on the way. 

MALONE. If you’ll be so kind, yes. And 

may I ask who— 

TANNER. Mr. Roebuck Ramsden, a very 

old friend of your daughter-in-law. 

MALONE. Happy to meet you, Mr. Ramsden. 

RAMSDEN. Thank you. Mr. Tanner is also 

one of our circle. 

MALONE. Glad to know you also, Mr. Tanner. 

TANNER. Thanks. [Malone and Ramsden 

go out very amicably through the little gate. 

Tanner calls to Octavius, who is wandering in 

the garden with Ann] Tavy! [Tavy comes to the 

steps, Tanner whispers loudly to him] Violet 

has married a financier of brigands. [Tanner 

hurries away to overtake Malone and Ramsden. 

Ann strolls to the steps with an idle impulse 

to torment Octavius]. 

ANN. Won’t you go with them, Tavy 

OCTAVIUS. [tears suddenly flushing his 

eyes] You cut me to the heart, Ann, by wanting 

me to go [he comes down on the lawn to hide 

his face from her. She follows him caressingly]. 

ANN. Poor Ricky Ticky Tavy! Poor heart! 

OCTAVIUS. It belongs to you, Ann. For-


give me: I must speak of it. I love you. You 

know I love you. 

ANN. What’s the good, Tavy You know 

that my mother is determined that I shall 

marry Jack. 

OCTAVIUS. [amazed] Jack! 

ANN. It seems absurd, doesn’t it 

OCTAVIUS. [with growing resentment] Do 

you mean to say that Jack has been playing 

with me all this time That he has been urging 

me not to marry you because he intends to 

marry you himself 

ANN. [alarmed] No no: you mustn’t lead 

him to believe that I said that: I don’t for a 

moment think that Jack knows his own mind. 

But it’s clear from my father’s will that he 

wished me to marry Jack. And my mother is 

set on it. 

OCTAVIUS. But you are not bound to sacrifice 

yourself always to the wishes of your 

parents. 

ANN. My father loved me. My mother 

loves me. Surely their wishes are a better 

guide than my own selfishness. 

OCTAVIUS. Oh, I know how unselfish you 

are, Ann. But believe me—though I know I 

am speaking in my own interest—there is another 

side to this question. Is it fair to Jack to 

marry him if you do not love him Is it fair to 

destroy my happiness as well as your own if 

you can bring yourself to love me 

ANN. [looking at him with a faint impulse 

of pity] Tavy, my dear, you are a nice 

creature—a good boy. 

OCTAVIUS. [humiliated] Is that all

ACT IV 257 

ANN. [mischievously in spite of her pity] 

That’s a great deal, I assure you. You would 

always worship the ground I trod on, wouldn’t 

you 

OCTAVIUS. I do. It sounds ridiculous; but 

it’s no exaggeration. I do; and I always shall. 

ANN. Always is a long word, Tavy. You 

see, I shall have to live up always to your idea 

of my divinity; and I don’t think I could do 

that if we were married. But if I marry Jack, 

you’ll never be disillusioned—at least not until 

I grow too old. 

OCTAVIUS. I too shall grow old, Ann. 

And when I am eighty, one white hair of the 

woman I love will make me tremble more than 

the thickest gold tress from the most beautiful 

young head. 

ANN. [quite touched] Oh, that’s poetry, 

Tavy, real poetry. It gives me that strange 

sudden sense of an echo from a former existence 

which always seems to me such a striking 

proof that we have immortal souls. 

OCTAVIUS. Do you believe that is true 

ANN. Tavy, if it is to become true you must 

lose me as well as love me. 

OCTAVIUS. Oh! [he hastily sits down at 

the little table and covers his face with his 

hands]. 

ANN. [with conviction] Tavy: I wouldn’t for 

worlds destroy your illusions. I can neither 

take you nor let you go. I can see exactly what 

will suit you. You must be a sentimental old 

bachelor for my sake. 

OCTAVIUS. [desperately] Ann: I’ll kill myself.


ANN. Oh no you won’t: that wouldn’t be 

kind. You won’t have a bad time. You will 

be very nice to women; and you will go a good 

deal to the opera. A broken heart is a very 

pleasant complaint for a man in London if he 

has a comfortable income. 

OCTAVIUS. [considerably cooled, but believing 

that he is only recovering his selfcontrol] 

I know you mean to be kind, Ann. 

Jack has persuaded you that cynicism is a 

good tonic for me. [He rises with quiet dignity]. 

ANN. [studying him slyly] You see, I’m disillusionizing 

you already. That’s what I dread. 

OCTAVIUS. You do not dread disillusionizing 

Jack. 

ANN. [her face lighting up with mischievous 

ecstasy—whispering] I can’t: he has 

no illusions about me. I shall surprise Jack 

the other way. Getting over an unfavorable 

impression is ever so much easier than living 

up to an ideal. Oh, I shall enrapture Jack 

sometimes! 

OCTAVIUS. [resuming the calm phase of 

despair, and beginning to enjoy his broken 

heart and delicate attitude without knowing 

it] I don’t doubt that. You will enrapture him 

always. And he—the fool!—thinks you would 

make him wretched. 

ANN. Yes: that’s the difficulty, so far. 

OCTAVIUS. [heroically] Shall I tell him 

that you love 

ANN. [quickly] Oh no: he’d run away again. 

OCTAVIUS. [shocked] Ann: would you 

marry an unwilling man 

ANN. What a queer creature you are, Tavy!

ACT IV 259 

There’s no such thing as a willing man when 

you really go for him. [She laughs naughtily]. 

I’m shocking you, I suppose. But you know 

you are really getting a sort of satisfaction already 

in being out of danger yourself. 

OCTAVIUS [startled] Satisfaction! [Reproachfully] 

You say that to me! 

ANN. Well, if it were really agony, would 

you ask for more of it 

OCTAVIUS. Have I asked for more of it 

ANN. You have offered to tell Jack that I 

love him. That’s self-sacrifice, I suppose; but 

there must be some satisfaction in it. Perhaps 

it’s because you’re a poet. You are like the bird 

that presses its breast against the sharp thorn 

to make itself sing. 

OCTAVIUS. It’s quite simple. I love you; 

and I want you to be happy. You don’t love 

me; so I can’t make you happy myself; but I 

can help another man to do it. 

ANN. Yes: it seems quite simple. But I 

doubt if we ever know why we do things. The 

only really simple thing is to go straight for 

what you want and grab it. I suppose I don’t 

love you, Tavy; but sometimes I feel as if I 

should like to make a man of you somehow. 

You are very foolish about women. 

OCTAVIUS. [almost coldly] I am content to 

be what I am in that respect. 

ANN. Then you must keep away from 

them, and only dream about them. I wouldn’t 

marry you for worlds, Tavy. 

OCTAVIUS. I have no hope, Ann: I accept 

my ill luck. But I don’t think you quite know 

how much it hurts.


ANN. You are so softhearted! It’s queer 

that you should be so different from Violet. Violet’s 

as hard as nails. 

OCTAVIUS. Oh no. I am sure Violet is 

thoroughly womanly at heart. 

ANN. [with some impatience] Why do you 

say that Is it unwomanly to be thoughtful 

and businesslike and sensible Do you want 

Violet to be an idiot—or something worse, like 

me 

OCTAVIUS. Something worse—like you! 

What do you mean, Ann 

ANN. Oh well, I don’t mean that, of course. 

But I have a great respect for Violet. She gets 

her own way always. 

OCTAVIUS. [sighing] So do you. 

ANN. Yes; but somehow she gets it without 

coaxing—without having to make people 

sentimental about her. 

OCTAVIUS. [with brotherly callousness] 

Nobody could get very sentimental about Violet, 

I think, pretty as she is. 

ANN. Oh yes they could, if she made them. 

OCTAVIUS. But surely no really nice 

woman would deliberately practise on men’s 

instincts in that way. 

ANN. [throwing up her hands] Oh Tavy, 

Tavy, Ricky Ticky Tavy, heaven help the 

woman who marries you! 

OCTAVIUS. [his passion reviving at the 

name] Oh why, why, why do you say that 

Don’t torment me. I don’t understand. 

ANN. Suppose she were to tell fibs, and lay 

snares for men 

OCTAVIUS. Do you think I could marry

ACT IV 261 

such a woman—I, who have known and loved 

you 

ANN. Hm! Well, at all events, she wouldn’t 

let you if she were wise. So that’s settled. And 

now I can’t talk any more. Say you forgive me, 

and that the subject is closed. 

OCTAVIUS. I have nothing to forgive; and 

the subject is closed. And if the wound is open, 

at least you shall never see it bleed. 

ANN. Poetic to the last, Tavy. Goodbye, 

dear. [She pats his check; has an impulse to 

kiss him and then another impulse of distaste 

which prevents her; finally runs away through 

the garden and into the villa]. 

Octavius again takes refuge at the table, 

bowing his head on his arms and sobbing 

softly. Mrs. Whitefield, who has been pottering 

round the Granada shops, and has a net full 

of little parcels in her hand, comes in through 

the gate and sees him. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [running to him and 

lifting his head] What’s the matter, Tavy Are 

you ill 

OCTAVIUS. No, nothing, nothing. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [still holding his 

head, anxiously] But you’re crying. Is it about 

Violet’s marriage 

OCTAVIUS. No, no. Who told you about 

Violet 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [restoring the head to 

its owner] I met Roebuck and that awful old 

Irishman. Are you sure you’re not ill What’s 

the matter 

OCTAVIUS. [affectionately] It’s nothing—only 

a man’s broken heart. Doesn’t that


sound ridiculous 

MRS WHITEFIELD. But what is it all 

about Has Ann been doing anything to you 

OCTAVIUS. It’s not Ann’s fault. And don’t 

think for a moment that I blame you. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [startled] For what 

OCTAVIUS. [pressing her hand consolingly] 

For nothing. I said I didn’t blame you. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. But I haven’t done 

anything. What’s the matter 

OCTAVIUS. [smiling sadly] Can’t you 

guess I daresay you are right to prefer Jack 

to me as a husband for Ann; but I love Ann; 

and it hurts rather. [He rises and moves away 

from her towards the middle of the lawn]. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [following him 

hastily] Does Ann say that I want her to 

marry Jack 

OCTAVIUS. Yes: she has told me. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [thoughtfully] Then 

I’m very sorry for you, Tavy. It’s only her way 

of saying she wants to marry Jack. Little she 

cares what I say or what I want! 

OCTAVIUS. But she would not say it unless 

she believed it. Surely you don’t suspect 

Ann of—of deceit!! 

MRS WHITEFIELD. Well, never mind, 

Tavy. I don’t know which is best for a young 

man: to know too little, like you, or too much, 

like Jack. 

Tanner returns. 

TANNER. Well, I’ve disposed of old Malone. 

I’ve introduced him to Mendoza, Limited; 

and left the two brigands together to talk it 

out. Hullo, Tavy! anything wrong

ACT IV 263 

OCTAVIUS. I must go wash my face, I see. 

[To Mrs. Whitefield] Tell him what you wish. 

[To Tanner] You may take it from me, Jack, 

that Ann approves of it. 

TANNER. [puzzled by his manner] Approves 

of what 

OCTAVIUS. Of what Mrs. Whitefield 

wishes. [He goes his way with sad dignity to 

the villa]. 

TANNER. [to Mrs. Whitefield] This is very 

mysterious. What is it you wish It shall be 

done, whatever it is. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [with snivelling gratitude] 

Thank you, Jack. [She sits down. Tanner 

brings the other chair from the table and 

sits close to her with his elbows on his knees, 

giving her his whole attention]. I don’t know 

why it is that other people’s children are so 

nice to me, and that my own have so little 

consideration for me. It’s no wonder I don’t 

seem able to care for Ann and Rhoda as I do 

for you and Tavy and Violet. It’s a very queer 

world. It used to be so straightforward and 

simple; and now nobody seems to think and 

feel as they ought. Nothing has been right 

since that speech that Professor Tyndall made 

at Belfast. 

TANNER. Yes: life is more complicated 

than we used to think. But what am I to do 

for you 

MRS WHITEFIELD. That’s just what I 

want to tell you. Of course you’ll marry Ann 

whether I like it myself or not— 

TANNER. [starting] It seems to me that I 

shall presently be married to Ann whether I


like it myself or not. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [peacefully] Oh, very 

likely you will: you know what she is when 

she has set her mind on anything. But don’t 

put it on me: that’s all I ask. Tavy has just let 

out that she’s been saying that I am making 

her marry you; and the poor boy is breaking 

his heart about it; for he is in love with her 

himself, though what he sees in her so wonderful, 

goodness knows: I don’t. It’s no use 

telling Tavy that Ann puts things into people’s 

heads by telling them that I want them when 

the thought of them never crossed my mind. 

It only sets Tavy against me. But you know 

better than that. So if you marry her, don’t 

put the blame on me. 

TANNER. [emphatically] I haven’t the 

slightest intention of marrying her. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [slyly] She’d suit you 

better than Tavy. She’d meet her match in 

you, Jack. I’d like to see her meet her match. 

TANNER. No man is a match for a woman, 

except with a poker and a pair of hobnailed 

boots. Not always even then. Anyhow, I can’t 

take the poker to her. I should be a mere slave. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. No: she’s afraid of 

you. At all events, you would tell her the truth 

about herself. She wouldn’t be able to slip out 

of it as she does with me. 

TANNER. Everybody would call me a 

brute if I told Ann the truth about herself in 

terms of her own moral code. To begin with, 

Ann says things that are not strictly true. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. I’m glad somebody 

sees she is not an angel.

ACT IV 265 

TANNER. In short—to put it as a husband 

would put it when exasperated to the point of 

speaking out—she is a liar. And since she has 

plunged Tavy head over ears in love with her 

without any intention of marrying him, she is 

a coquette, according to the standard definition 

of a coquette as a woman who rouses passions 

she has no intention of gratifying. And 

as she has now reduced you to the point of 

being willing to sacrifice me at the altar for 

the mere satisfaction of getting me to call her 

a liar to her face, I may conclude that she 

is a bully as well. She can’t bully men as 

she bullies women; so she habitually and unscrupulously 

uses her personal fascination to 

make men give her whatever she wants. That 

makes her almost something for which I know 

no polite name. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [in mild expostulation] 

Well, you can’t expect perfection, Jack. 

TANNER. I don’t. But what annoys me is 

that Ann does. I know perfectly well that all 

this about her being a liar and a bully and a 

coquette and so forth is a trumped-up moral 

indictment which might be brought against 

anybody. We all lie; we all bully as much 

as we dare; we all bid for admiration without 

the least intention of earning it; we all 

get as much rent as we can out of our powers 

of fascination. If Ann would admit this 

I shouldn’t quarrel with her. But she won’t. 

If she has children she’ll take advantage of 

their telling lies to amuse herself by whacking 

them. If another woman makes eyes at me, 

she’ll refuse to know a coquette. She will do


just what she likes herself whilst insisting on 

everybody else doing what the conventional 

code prescribes. In short, I can stand everything 

except her confounded hypocrisy. That’s 

what beats me. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [carried away by the 

relief of hearing her own opinion so eloquently 

expressed] Oh, she is a hypocrite. She is: she 

is. Isn’t she 

TANNER. Then why do you want to marry 

me to her 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [querulously] There 

now! put it on me, of course. I never thought 

of it until Tavy told me she said I did. But, you 

know, I’m very fond of Tavy: he’s a sort of son 

to me; and I don’t want him to be trampled on 

and made wretched. 

TANNER. Whereas I don’t matter, I suppose. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. Oh, you are different, 

somehow: you are able to take care of yourself. 

You’d serve her out. And anyhow, she must 

marry somebody. 

TANNER. Aha! there speaks the life instinct. 

You detest her; but you feel that you 

must get her married. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [rising, shocked] Do 

you mean that I detest my own daughter! 

Surely you don’t believe me to be so wicked 

and unnatural as that, merely because I see 

her faults. 

TANNER. [cynically] You love her, then 

MRS WHITEFIELD. Why, of course I do. 

What queer things you say, Jack! We can’t 

help loving our own blood relations.

ACT IV 267 

TANNER. Well, perhaps it saves unpleasantness 

to say so. But for my part, I suspect 

that the tables of consanguinity have a natural 

basis in a natural repugnance [he rises]. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. You shouldn’t say 

things like that, Jack. I hope you won’t tell 

Ann that I have been speaking to you. I only 

wanted to set myself right with you and Tavy. 

I couldn’t sit mumchance and have everything 

put on me. 

TANNER. [politely] Quite so. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [dissatisfied] And 

now I’ve only made matters worse. Tavy’s 

angry with me because I don’t worship Ann. 

And when it’s been put into my head that Ann 

ought to marry you, what can I say except that 

it would serve her right 

TANNER. Thank you. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. Now don’t be silly 

and twist what I say into something I don’t 

mean. I ought to have fair play— 

Ann comes from the villa, followed 

presently by Violet, who is dressed for driving. 

ANN. [coming to her mother’s right hand 

with threatening suavity] Well, mamma darling, 

you seem to be having a delightful chat 

with Jack. We can hear you all over the place. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [appalled] Have you 

overheard— 

TANNER. Never fear: Ann is only—well, 

we were discussing that habit of hers just now. 

She hasn’t heard a word. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [stoutly] I don’t care 

whether she has or not: I have a right to say 

what I please.


VIOLET. [arriving on the lawn and coming 

between Mrs. Whitefield and Tanner] I’ve come 

to say goodbye. I’m off for my honeymoon. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [crying] Oh don’t say 

that, Violet. And no wedding, no breakfast, no 

clothes, nor anything. 

VIOLET. [petting her] It won’t be for long. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. Don’t let him take 

you to America. Promise me that you won’t. 

VIOLET. [very decidedly] I should think 

not, indeed. Don’t cry, dear: I’m only going to 

the hotel. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. But going in 

that dress, with your luggage, makes one 

realize—[she chokes, and then breaks out 

again] How I wish you were my daughter, 

Violet! 

VIOLET. [soothing her] There, there: so I 

am. Ann will be jealous. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. Ann doesn’t care a bit 

for me. 

ANN. Fie, mother! Come, now: you mustn’t 

cry any more: you know Violet doesn’t like it 

[Mrs. Whitefield dries her eyes, and subsides]. 

VIOLET. Goodbye, Jack. 

TANNER. Goodbye, Violet. 

VIOLET. The sooner you get married too, 

the better. You will be much less misunderstood. 

TANNER. [restively] I quite expect to get 

married in the course of the afternoon. You 

all seem to have set your minds on it. 

VIOLET. You might do worse. [To Mrs. 

Whitefield: putting her arm round her] Let me 

take you to the hotel with me: the drive will do

ACT IV 269 

you good. Come in and get a wrap. [She takes 

her towards the villa]. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. [as they go up 

through the garden] I don’t know what I shall 

do when you are gone, with no one but Ann 

in the house; and she always occupied with 

the men! It’s not to be expected that your 

husband will care to be bothered with an old 

woman like me. Oh, you needn’t tell me: politeness 

is all very well; but I know what people 

think—[She talks herself and Violet out of 

sight and hearing]. 

Ann, musing on Violet’s opportune advice, 

approaches Tanner; examines him humorously 

for a moment from toe to top; and 

finally delivers her opinion. 

ANN. Violet is quite right. You ought to get 

married. 

TANNER. [explosively] Ann: I will not 

marry you. Do you hear I won’t, won’t, won’t, 

won’t, won’t marry you. 

ANN. [placidly] Well, nobody axd you, sir 

she said, sir she said, sir she said. So that’s 

settled. 

TANNER. Yes, nobody has asked me; but 

everybody treats the thing as settled. It’s 

in the air. When we meet, the others go 

away on absurd pretexts to leave us alone together. 

Ramsden no longer scowls at me: his 

eye beams, as if he were already giving you 

away to me in church. Tavy refers me to your 

mother and gives me his blessing. Straker 

openly treats you as his future employer: it 

was he who first told me of it. 

ANN. Was that why you ran away


TANNER. Yes, only to be stopped by a 

lovesick brigand and run down like a truant 

schoolboy. 

ANN. Well, if you don’t want to be married, 

you needn’t be [she turns away from him and 

sits down, much at her ease]. 

TANNER. [following her] Does any man 

want to be hanged Yet men let themselves 

be hanged without a struggle for life, though 

they could at least give the chaplain a black 

eye. We do the world’s will, not our own. I 

have a frightful feeling that I shall let myself 

be married because it is the world’s will that 

you should have a husband. 

ANN. I daresay I shall, someday. 

TANNER. But why me—me of all men 

Marriage is to me apostasy, profanation of the 

sanctuary of my soul, violation of my manhood, 

sale of my birthright, shameful surrender, 

ignominious capitulation, acceptance of 

defeat. I shall decay like a thing that has 

served its purpose and is done with; I shall 

change from a man with a future to a man 

with a past; I shall see in the greasy eyes of all 

the other husbands their relief at the arrival 

of a new prisoner to share their ignominy. The 

young men will scorn me as one who has sold 

out: to the young women I, who have always 

been an enigma and a possibility, shall be 

merely somebody else’s property—and damaged 

goods at that: a secondhand man at best. 

ANN. Well, your wife can put on a cap and 

make herself ugly to keep you in countenance, 

like my grandmother. 

TANNER. So that she may make her tri-

ACT IV 271 

umph more insolent by publicly throwing 

away the bait the moment the trap snaps on 

the victim! 

ANN. After all, though, what difference 

would it make Beauty is all very well at first 

sight; but who ever looks at it when it has 

been in the house three days I thought our 

pictures very lovely when papa bought them; 

but I haven’t looked at them for years. You 

never bother about my looks: you are too well 

used to me. I might be the umbrella stand. 

TANNER. You lie, you vampire: you lie. 

ANN. Flatterer. Why are you trying to fascinate 

me, Jack, if you don’t want to marry 

me 

TANNER. The Life Force. I am in the grip 

of the Life Force. 

ANN. I don’t understand in the least: it 

sounds like the Life Guards. 

TANNER. Why don’t you marry Tavy He 

is willing. Can you not be satisfied unless your 

prey struggles 

ANN. [turning to him as if to let him into 

a secret] Tavy will never marry. Haven’t you 

noticed that that sort of man never marries 

TANNER. What! a man who idolizes 

women who sees nothing in nature but romantic 

scenery for love duets! Tavy, the chivalrous, 

the faithful, the tenderhearted and true! 

Tavy never marry! Why, he was born to be 

swept up by the first pair of blue eyes he meets 

in the street. 

ANN. Yes, I know. All the same, Jack, men 

like that always live in comfortable bachelor 

lodgings with broken hearts, and are adored


by their landladies, and never get married. 

Men like you always get married. 

TANNER. [Smiting his brow] How frightfully, 

horribly true! It has been staring me in 

the face all my life; and I never saw it before. 

ANN. Oh, it’s the same with women. The 

poetic temperament’s a very nice temperament, 

very amiable, very harmless and poetic, 

I daresay; but it’s an old maid’s temperament. 

TANNER. Barren. The Life Force passes it 

by. 

ANN. If that’s what you mean by the Life 

Force, yes. 

TANNER. You don’t care for Tavy 

ANN. [looking round carefully to make sure 

that Tavy is not within earshot] No. 

TANNER. And you do care for me 

ANN. [rising quietly and shaking her finger 

at him] Now Jack! Behave yourself. 

TANNER. Infamous, abandoned woman! 

Devil! 

ANN. Boa-constrictor! Elephant! 

TANNER. Hypocrite! 

ANN. [Softly] I must be, for my future husband’s 

sake. 

TANNER. For mine! [Correcting himself 

savagely] I mean for his. 

ANN. [ignoring the correction] Yes, for 

yours. You had better marry what you call 

a hypocrite, Jack. Women who are not hypocrites 

go about in rational dress and are insulted 

and get into all sorts of hot water. And 

then their husbands get dragged in too, and 

live in continual dread of fresh complications.

ACT IV 273 

Wouldn’t you prefer a wife you could depend 

on 

TANNER. No, a thousand times no: hot 

water is the revolutionist’s element. You clean 

men as you clean milkpails, by scalding them. 

ANN. Cold water has its uses too. It’s 

healthy. 

TANNER. [despairingly] Oh, you are 

witty: at the supreme moment the Life Force 

endows you with every quality. Well, I too can 

be a hypocrite. Your father’s will appointed 

me your guardian, not your suitor. I shall be 

faithful to my trust. 

ANN. [in low siren tones] He asked me who 

would I have as my guardian before he made 

that will. I chose you! 

TANNER. The will is yours then! The trap 

was laid from the beginning. 

ANN. [concentrating all her magic] From 

the beginning from our childhood—for both of 

us—by the Life Force. 

TANNER. I will not marry you. I will not 

marry you. 

ANN. Oh; you will, you will. 

TANNER. I tell you, no, no, no. 

ANN. I tell you, yes, yes, yes. 

TANNER. No. 

ANN. [coaxing — imploring — almost exhausted] 

Yes. Before it is too late for repentance. 

Yes. 

TANNER. [struck by the echo from the 

past] When did all this happen to me before 

Are we two dreaming 

ANN. [suddenly losing her courage, with 

an anguish that she does not conceal] No. We


are awake; and you have said no: that is all. 

TANNER. [brutally] Well 

ANN. Well, I made a mistake: you do not 

love me. 

TANNER. [seizing her in his arms] It is 

false: I love you. The Life Force enchants me: I 

have the whole world in my arms when I clasp 

you. But I am fighting for my freedom, for my 

honor, for myself, one and indivisible. 

ANN. Your happiness will be worth them 

all. 

TANNER. You would sell freedom and 

honor and self for happiness 

ANN. It will not be all happiness for me. 

Perhaps death. 

TANNER. [groaning] Oh, that clutch holds 

and hurts. What have you grasped in me Is 

there a father’s heart as well as a mother’s 

ANN. Take care, Jack: if anyone comes 

while we are like this, you will have to marry 

me. 

TANNER. If we two stood now on the edge 

of a precipice, I would hold you tight and 

jump. 

ANN. [panting, failing more and more under 

the strain] Jack: let me go. I have 

dared so frightfully—it is lasting longer than 

I thought. Let me go: I can’t bear it. 

TANNER. Nor I. Let it kill us. 

ANN. Yes: I don’t care. I am at the end of 

my forces. I don’t care. I think I am going to 

faint. 

At this moment Violet and Octavius come 

from the villa with Mrs. Whitefield, who is 

wrapped up for driving. Simultaneously Mal-

ACT IV 275 

one and Ramsden, followed by Mendoza and 

Straker, come in through the little gate in the 

paling. Tanner shamefacedly releases Ann, 

who raises her hand giddily to her forehead. 

MALONE. Take care. Something’s the 

matter with the lady. 

RAMSDEN. What does this mean 

VIOLET. [running between Ann and Tanner] 

Are you ill 

ANN. [reeling, with a supreme effort] I have 

promised to marry Jack. [She swoons. Violet 

kneels by her and chafes her band. Tanner 

runs round to her other hand, and tries to lift 

her bead. Octavius goes to Violet’s assistance, 

but does not know what to do. Mrs. Whitefield 

hurries back into the villa. Octavius, Malone 

and Ramsden run to Ann and crowd round 

her, stooping to assist. Straker coolly comes 

to Ann’s feet, and Mendoza to her head, both 

upright and self-possessed]. 

STRAKER. Now then, ladies and gentlemen: 

she don’t want a crowd round her: she 

wants air—all the air she can git. If you 

please, gents— [Malone and Ramsden allow 

him to drive them gently past Ann and up 

the lawn towards the garden, where Octavius, 

who has already become conscious of his uselessness, 

joins them. Straker, following them 

up, pauses for a moment to instruct Tanner]. 

Don’t lift er ed, Mr. Tanner: let it go flat so’s 

the blood can run back into it. 

MENDOZA. He is right, Mr. Tanner. Trust 

to the air of the Sierra. [He withdraws delicately 

to the garden steps]. 

TANNER. [rising] I yield to your supe-


rior knowledge of physiology, Henry. [He withdraws 

to the corner of the lawn; and Octavius 

immediately hurries down to him]. 

TAVY. [aside to Tanner, grasping his hand] 

Jack: be very happy. 

TANNER. [aside to Tavy] I never asked 

her. It is a trap for me. [He goes up the lawn 

towards the garden. Octavius remains petrified]. 

MENDOZA. [intercepting Mrs. Whitefield, 

who comes from the villa with a glass of 

brandy] What is this, madam [he takes it from 

her] 

MRS WHITEFIELD. A little brandy. 

MENDOZA. The worst thing you could 

give her. Allow me. [He swallows it]. Trust 

to the air of the Sierra, madam. 

For a moment the men all forget Ann and 

stare at Mendoza. 

ANN. [in Violet’s ear, clutching her round 

the neck] Violet, did Jack say anything when I 

fainted 

VIOLET. No. 

ANN. Ah! [with a sigh of intense relief she 

relapses]. 

MRS WHITEFIELD. Oh, she’s fainted 

again. 

They are about to rush back to her; but 

Mendoza stops them with a warning gesture. 

ANN. [supine] No I haven’t. I’m quite 

happy. 

TANNER. [suddenly walking determinedly 

to her, and snatching her hand from Violet 

to feel her pulse] Why, her pulse is positively 

bounding. Come, get up. What nonsense! Up

ACT IV 277 

with you. [He gets her up summarily]. 

ANN. Yes: I feel strong enough now. But 

you very nearly killed me, Jack, for all that. 

MALONE. A rough wooer, eh They’re the 

best sort, Miss Whitefield. I congratulate Mr. 

Tanner; and I hope to meet you and him as 

frequent guests at the Abbey. 

ANN. Thank you. [She goes past Malone to 

Octavius] Ricky Ticky Tavy: congratulate me. 

[Aside to him] I want to make you cry for the 

last time. 

TAVY. [steadfastly] No more tears. I am 

happy in your happiness. And I believe in you 

in spite of everything. 

RAMSDEN. [coming between Malone and 

Tanner] You are a happy man, Jack Tanner. I 

envy you. 

MENDOZA. [advancing between Violet 

and Tanner] Sir: there are two tragedies in 

life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The 

other is to get it. Mine and yours, sir. 

TANNER. Mr. Mendoza: I have no heart’s 

desires. Ramsden: it is very easy for you to 

call me a happy man: you are only a spectator. 

I am one of the principals; and I know better. 

Ann: stop tempting Tavy, and come back 

to me. 

ANN. [complying] You are absurd, Jack. 

[She takes his proffered arm]. 

TANNER. [continuing] I solemnly say that 

I am not a happy man. Ann looks happy; but 

she is only triumphant, successful, victorious. 

That is not happiness, but the price for which 

the strong sell their happiness. What we have 

both done this afternoon is to renounce tran-


quillity, above all renounce the romantic possibilities 

of an unknown future, for the cares 

of a household and a family. I beg that no 

man may seize the occasion to get half drunk 

and utter imbecile speeches and coarse pleasantries 

at my expense. We propose to furnish 

our own house according to our own taste; 

and I hereby give notice that the seven or 

eight travelling clocks, the four or five dressing 

cases, the salad bowls, the carvers and fish 

slices, the copy of Tennyson in extra morocco, 

and all the other articles you are preparing to 

heap upon us, will be instantly sold, and the 

proceeds devoted to circulating free copies of 

the Revolutionist’s Handbook. The wedding 

will take place three days after our return to 

England, by special license, at the office of the 

district superintendent registrar, in the presence 

of my solicitor and his clerk, who, like his 

clients, will be in ordinary walking dress. 

VIOLET. [with intense conviction] You are 

a brute, Jack. 

ANN. [looking at him with fond pride and 

caressing his arm] Never mind her, dear. Go 

on talking. 

TANNER. Talking! 

Universal laughter.

The Revolutionist’s 

Handbook and 

Pocket Companion 

BY JOHN TANNER, M.I.R.C. 

(MEMBER OF THE IDLE RICH CLASS). 

PREFACE TO THE 

REVOLUTIONIST’S 

HANDBOOK 

“No one can contemplate the 

present condition of the masses 

of the people without desiring 

something like a revolution for 

the better.”—SIR ROBERT GIFFEN. 

Essays in Finance, vol. ii. p. 393. 

FOREWORD 

A revolutionist is one who desires to discard 

the existing social order and try another. 

279


The constitution of England is revolutionary. 

To a Russian or Anglo-Indian bureaucrat, 

a general election is as much a revolution as 

a referendum or plebiscite in which the people 

fight instead of voting. The French Revolution 

overthrew one set of rulers and substituted 

another with different interests and different 

views. That is what a general election enables 

the people to do in England every seven years 

if they choose. Revolution is therefore a national 

institution in England; and its advocacy 

by an Englishman needs no apology. 

Every man is a revolutionist concerning 

the thing he understands. For example, every 

person who has mastered a profession is a 

sceptic concerning it, and consequently a revolutionist. 

Every genuine religious person is a 

heretic and therefore a revolutionist. 

All who achieve real distinction in life begin 

as revolutionists. The most distinguished 

persons become more revolutionary as they 

grow older, though they are commonly supposed 

to become more conservative owing to 

their loss of faith in conventional methods of 

reform. 

Any person under the age of thirty, who, 

having any knowledge of the existing social 

order, is not a revolutionist, is an inferior. 

AND YET 

Revolutions have never lightened the burden 

of tyranny: they have only shifted it to another 

shoulder.

THE REVOLUTIONIST’S HANDBOOK 281 

JOHN TANNER 

I. ON GOOD BREEDING 

If there were no God, said the eighteenth century 

Deist, it would be necessary to invent 

Him. Now this XVIII century god was deus 

ex machina, the god who helped those who 

could not help themselves, the god of the lazy 

and incapable. The nineteenth century decided 

that there is indeed no such god; and 

now Man must take in hand all the work that 

he used to shirk with an idle prayer. He 

must, in effect, change himself into the political 

Providence which he formerly conceived 

as god; and such change is not only possible, 

but the only sort of change that is real. The 

mere transfiguration of institutions, as from 

military and priestly dominance to commercial 

and scientific dominance, from commercial 

dominance to proletarian democracy, from 

slavery to serfdom, from serfdom to capitalism, 

from monarchy to republicanism, from 

polytheism to monotheism, from monotheism 

to atheism, from atheism to pantheistic humanitarianism, 

from general illiteracy to general 

literacy, from romance to realism, from 

realism to mysticism, from metaphysics to 

physics, are all but changes from Tweedledum 

to Tweedledee: plus ça change, plus c’est la 

même chose. But the changes from the crab 

apple to the pippin, from the wolf and fox to 

the house dog, from the charger of Henry V 

to the brewer’s draught horse and the race-


horse, are real; for here Man has played the 

god, subduing Nature to his intention, and 

ennobling or debasing Life for a set purpose. 

And what can be done with a wolf can be done 

with a man. If such monsters as the tramp 

and the gentleman can appear as mere byproducts 

of Man’s individual greed and folly, 

what might we not hope for as a main product 

of his universal aspiration 

This is no new conclusion. The despair 

of institutions, and the inexorable “ye must 

be born again,” with Mrs Poyser’s stipulation, 

“and born different,” recurs in every generation. 

The cry for the Superman did not begin 

with Nietzsche, nor will it end with his vogue. 

But it has always been silenced by the same 

question: what kind of person is this Superman 

to be You ask, not for a super-apple, 

but for an eatable apple; not for a superhorse, 

but for a horse of greater draught or velocity. 

Neither is it of any use to ask for a Superman: 

you must furnish a specification of the 

sort of man you want. Unfortunately you do 

not know what sort of man you want. Some 

sort of good-looking philosopher-athlete, with 

a handsome healthy woman for his mate, perhaps. 

Vague as this is, it is a great advance on 

the popular demand for a perfect gentleman 

and a perfect lady. And, after all, no market 

demand in the world takes the form of exact 

technical specification of the article required. 

Excellent poultry and potatoes are produced 

to satisfy the demand of housewives who do 

not know the technical differences between a


tuber and a chicken. They will tell you that 

the proof of the pudding is in the eating; and 

they are right. The proof of the Superman will 

be in the living; and we shall find out how to 

produce him by the old method of trial and error, 

and not by waiting for a completely convincing 

prescription of his ingredients. 

Certain common and obvious mistakes 

may be ruled out from the beginning. For example, 

we agree that we want superior mind; 

but we need not fall into the football club 

folly of counting on this as a product of superior 

body. Yet if we recoil so far as to conclude 

that superior mind consists in being the 

dupe of our ethical classifications of virtues 

and vices, in short, of conventional morality, 

we shall fall out of the frying-pan of the football 

club into the fire of the Sunday School. 

If we must choose between a race of athletes 

and a race of “good” men, let us have the athletes: 

better Samson and Milo than Calvin 

and Robespierre. But neither alternative is 

worth changing for: Samson is no more a Superman 

than Calvin. What then are we to do 

II. PROPERTY AND 

MARRIAGE 

Let us hurry over the obstacles set up by property 

and marriage. Revolutionists make too 

much of them. No doubt it is easy to demonstrate 

that property will destroy society unless 

society destroys it. No doubt, also, prop-


erty has hitherto held its own and destroyed 

all the empires. But that was because the 

superficial objection to it (that it distributes 

social wealth and the social labor burden in 

a grotesquely inequitable manner) did not 

threaten the existence of the race, but only the 

individual happiness of its units, and finally 

the maintenance of some irrelevant political 

form or other, such as a nation, an empire, 

or the like. Now as happiness never matters 

to Nature, as she neither recognizes flags and 

frontiers nor cares a straw whether the economic 

system adopted by a society is feudal, 

capitalistic, or collectivist, provided it keeps 

the race afoot (the hive and the anthill being 

as acceptable to her as Utopia), the demonstrations 

of Socialists, though irrefutable, will 

never make any serious impression on property. 

The knell of that over-rated institution 

will not sound until it is felt to conflict 

with some more vital matter than mere personal 

inequities in industrial economy. No 

such conflict was perceived whilst society had 

not yet grown beyond national communities 

too small and simple to overtax Man’s limited 

political capacity disastrously. But we have 

now reached the stage of international organization. 

Man’s political capacity and magnanimity 

are clearly beaten by the vastness 

and complexity of the problems forced on him. 

And it is at this anxious moment that he finds, 

when he looks upward for a mightier mind 

to help him, that the heavens are empty. He 

will presently see that his discarded formula 

that Man is the Temple of the Holy Ghost


happens to be precisely true, and that it is 

only through his own brain and hand that this 

Holy Ghost, formally the most nebulous person 

in the Trinity, and now become its sole 

survivor as it has always been its real Unity, 

can help him in any way. And so, if the Superman 

is to come, he must be born of Woman 

by Man’s intentional and well-considered contrivance. 

Conviction of this will smash everything 

that opposes it. Even Property and Marriage, 

which laugh at the laborer’s petty complaint 

that he is defrauded of “surplus value,” 

and at the domestic miseries of the slaves of 

the wedding ring, will themselves be laughed 

aside as the lightest of trifles if they cross this 

conception when it becomes a fully realized vital 

purpose of the race. 

That they must cross it becomes obvious 

the moment we acknowledge the futility 

of breeding men for special qualities as we 

breed cocks for game, greyhounds for speed, 

or sheep for mutton. What is really important 

in Man is the part of him that we do 

not yet understand. Of much of it we are not 

even conscious, just as we are not normally 

conscious of keeping up our circulation by our 

heart-pump, though if we neglect it we die. 

We are therefore driven to the conclusion that 

when we have carried selection as far as we 

can by rejecting from the list of eligible parents 

all persons who are uninteresting, unpromising, 

or blemished without any set-off, 

we shall still have to trust to the guidance 

of fancy (alias Voice of Nature), both in the 

breeders and the parents, for that superiority


in the unconscious self which will be the true 

characteristic of the Superman. 

At this point we perceive the importance 

of giving fancy the widest possible field. To 

cut humanity up into small cliques, and effectively 

limit the selection of the individual to 

his own clique, is to postpone the Superman 

for eons, if not for ever. Not only should every 

person be nourished and trained as a possible 

parent, but there should be no possibility 

of such an obstacle to natural selection as 

the objection of a countess to a navvy or of a 

duke to a charwoman. Equality is essential to 

good breeding; and equality, as all economists 

know, is incompatible with property. 

Besides, equality is an essential condition 

of bad breeding also; and bad breeding is indispensable 

to the weeding out of the human 

race. When the conception of heredity took 

hold of the scientific imagination in the middle 

of last century, its devotees announced 

that it was a crime to marry the lunatic to the 

lunatic or the consumptive to the consumptive. 

But pray are we to try to correct our diseased 

stocks by infecting our healthy stocks 

with them Clearly the attraction which disease 

has for diseased people is beneficial to 

the race. If two really unhealthy people get 

married, they will, as likely as not, have a 

great number of children who will all die before 

they reach maturity. This is a far more 

satisfactory arrangement than the tragedy of 

a union between a healthy and an unhealthy 

person. Though more costly than sterilization 

of the unhealthy, it has the enormous ad-


vantage that in the event of our notions of 

health and unhealth being erroneous (which 

to some extent they most certainly are), the 

error will be corrected by experience instead 

of confirmed by evasion. 

One fact must be faced resolutely, in spite 

of the shrieks of the romantic. There is no evidence 

that the best citizens are the offspring 

of congenial marriages, or that a conflict of 

temperament is not a highly important part 

of what breeders call crossing. On the contrary, 

it is quite sufficiently probable that good 

results may be obtained from parents who 

would be extremely unsuitable companions 

and partners, to make it certain that the experiment 

of mating them will sooner or later 

be tried purposely almost as often as it is now 

tried accidentally. But mating such couples 

must clearly not involve marrying them. In 

conjugation two complementary persons may 

supply one another’s deficiencies: in the domestic 

partnership of marriage they only feel 

them and suffer from them. Thus the son 

of a robust, cheerful, eupeptic British country 

squire, with the tastes and range of his 

class, and of a clever, imaginative, intellectual, 

highly civilized Jewess, might be very 

superior to both his parents; but it is not 

likely that the Jewess would find the squire 

an interesting companion, or his habits, his 

friends, his place and mode of life congenial to 

her. Therefore marriage, whilst it is made an 

indispensable condition of mating, will delay 

the advent of the Superman as effectually as 

Property, and will be modified by the impulse


towards him just as effectually. 

The practical abrogation of Property and 

Marriage as they exist at present will occur 

without being much noticed. To the mass 

of men, the intelligent abolition of property 

would mean nothing except an increase in the 

quantity of food, clothing, housing, and comfort 

at their personal disposal, as well as a 

greater control over their time and circumstances. 

Very few persons now make any distinction 

between virtually complete property 

and property held on such highly developed 

public conditions as to place its income on the 

same footing as that of a propertyless clergyman, 

officer, or civil servant. A landed proprietor 

may still drive men and women off 

his land, demolish their dwellings, and replace 

them with sheep or deer; and in the unregulated 

trades the private trader may still 

spunge on the regulated trades and sacrifice 

the life and health of the nation as lawlessly 

as the Manchester cotton manufacturers did 

at the beginning of last century. But though 

the Factory Code on the one hand, and Trade 

Union organization on the other, have, within 

the lifetime of men still living, converted the 

old unrestricted property of the cotton manufacturer 

in his mill and the cotton spinner 

in his labor into a mere permission to trade 

or work on stringent public or collective conditions, 

imposed in the interest of the general 

welfare without any regard for individual 

hard cases, people in Lancashire still speak 

of their “property” in the old terms, meaning 

nothing more by it than the things a thief can


be punished for stealing. The total abolition 

of property, and the conversion of every citizen 

into a salaried functionary in the public 

service, would leave much more than 99 per 

cent of the nation quite unconscious of any 

greater change than now takes place when the 

son of a shipowner goes into the navy. They 

would still call their watches and umbrellas 

and back gardens their property. 

Marriage also will persist as a name attached 

to a general custom long after the custom 

itself will have altered. For example, 

modern English marriage, as modified by divorce 

and by Married Women’s Property Acts, 

differs more from early XIX century marriage 

than Byron’s marriage did from Shakespear’s. 

At the present moment marriage in England 

differs not only from marriage in France, but 

from marriage in Scotland. Marriage as modified 

by the divorce laws in South Dakota 

would be called mere promiscuity in Clapham. 

Yet the Americans, far from taking a profligate 

and cynical view of marriage, do homage 

to its ideals with a seriousness that seems old 

fashioned in Clapham. Neither in England 

nor America would a proposal to abolish marriage 

be tolerated for a moment; and yet nothing 

is more certain than that in both countries 

the progressive modification of the marriage 

contract will be continued until it is no 

more onerous nor irrevocable than any ordinary 

commercial deed of partnership. Were 

even this dispensed with, people would still 

call themselves husbands and wives; describe 

their companionships as marriages; and be for


the most part unconscious that they were any 

less married than Henry VIII. For though a 

glance at the legal conditions of marriage in 

different Christian countries shews that marriage 

varies legally from frontier to frontier, 

domesticity varies so little that most people 

believe their own marriage laws to be universal. 

Consequently here again, as in the case of 

Property, the absolute confidence of the public 

in the stability of the institution’s name, 

makes it all the easier to alter its substance. 

However, it cannot be denied that one of 

the changes in public opinion demanded by 

the need for the Superman is a very unexpected 

one. It is nothing less than the dissolution 

of the present necessary association 

of marriage with conjugation, which most unmarried 

people regard as the very diagnostic 

of marriage. They are wrong, of course: 

it would be quite as near the truth to say 

that conjugation is the one purely accidental 

and incidental condition of marriage. Conjugation 

is essential to nothing but the propagation 

of the race; and the moment that 

paramount need is provided for otherwise 

than by marriage, conjugation, from Nature’s 

creative point of view, ceases to be essential 

in marriage. But marriage does not thereupon 

cease to be so economical, convenient, 

and comfortable, that the Superman might 

safely bribe the matrimonomaniacs by offering 

to revive all the old inhuman stringency 

and irrevocability of marriage, to abolish divorce, 

to confirm the horrible bond which still 

chains decent people to drunkards, criminals,


and wasters, provided only the complete extrication 

of conjugation from it were conceded to 

him. For if people could form domestic companionships 

on no easier terms than these, 

they would still marry. The Roman Catholic, 

forbidden by his Church to avail himself of the 

divorce laws, marries as freely as the South 

Dakotan Presbyterians who can change partners 

with a facility that scandalizes the old 

world; and were his Church to dare a further 

step towards Christianity and enjoin celibacy 

on its laity as well as on its clergy, marriages 

would still be contracted for the sake 

of domesticity by perfectly obedient sons and 

daughters of the Church. One need not further 

pursue these hypotheses: they are only 

suggested here to help the reader to analyse 

marriage into its two functions of regulating 

conjugation and supplying a form of domesticity. 

These two functions are quite separable; 

and domesticity is the only one of the 

two which is essential to the existence of marriage, 

because conjugation without domesticity 

is not marriage at all, whereas domesticity 

without conjugation is still marriage: in fact it 

is necessarily the actual condition of all fertile 

marriages during a great part of their duration, 

and of some marriages during the whole 

of it. 

Taking it, then, that Property and Marriage, 

by destroying Equality and thus hampering 

sexual selection with irrelevant conditions, 

are hostile to the evolution of the Superman, 

it is easy to understand why the only 

generally known modern experiment in breed-


ing the human race took place in a community 

which discarded both institutions. 

III. THE PERFECTIONIST 

EXPERIMENT AT ONEIDA 

CREEK 

In 1848 the Oneida Community was founded 

in America to carry out a resolution arrived 

at by a handful of Perfectionist Communists 

“that we will devote ourselves exclusively to 

the establishment of the Kingdom of God.” 

Though the American nation declared that 

this sort of thing was not to be tolerated 

in a Christian country, the Oneida Community 

held its own for over thirty years, during 

which period it seems to have produced 

healthier children and done and suffered less 

evil than any Joint Stock Company on record. 

It was, however, a highly selected community; 

for a genuine communist (roughly definable as 

an intensely proud person who proposes to enrich 

the common fund instead of to spunge on 

it) is superior to an ordinary joint stock capitalist 

precisely as an ordinary joint stock capitalist 

is superior to a pirate. Further, the Perfectionists 

were mightily shepherded by their 

chief Noyes, one of those chance attempts at 

the Superman which occur from time to time 

in spite of the interference of Man’s blundering 

institutions. The existence of Noyes simplified 

the breeding problem for the Communists, 

the question as to what sort of man they


should strive to breed being settled at once by 

the obvious desirability of breeding another 

Noyes. 

But an experiment conducted by a handful 

of people, who, after thirty years of immunity 

from the unintentional child slaughter 

that goes on by ignorant parents in private 

homes, numbered only 300, could do very 

little except prove that Communists, under 

the guidance of a Superman “devoted exclusively 

to the establishment of the Kingdom 

of God,” and caring no more for property and 

marriage than a Camberwell minister cares 

for Hindoo Caste or Suttee, might make a 

much better job of their lives than ordinary 

folk under the harrow of both these institutions. 

Yet their Superman himself admitted 

that this apparent success was only part of the 

abnormal phenomenon of his own occurrence; 

for when he came to the end of his powers 

through age, he himself guided and organized 

the voluntary relapse of the communists into 

marriage, capitalism, and customary private 

life, thus admitting that the real social solution 

was not what a casual Superman could 

persuade a picked company to do for him, 

but what a whole community of Supermen 

would do spontaneously. If Noyes had had 

to organize, not a few dozen Perfectionists, 

but the whole United States, America would 

have beaten him as completely as England 

beat Oliver Cromwell, France Napoleon, or 

Rome Julius Cæsar. Cromwell learnt by bitter 

experience that God himself cannot raise 

a people above its own level, and that even


though you stir a nation to sacrifice all its appetites 

to its conscience, the result will still 

depend wholly on what sort of conscience the 

nation has got. Napoleon seems to have ended 

by regarding mankind as a troublesome pack 

of hounds only worth keeping for the sport 

of hunting with them. Cæsar’s capacity for 

fighting without hatred or resentment was defeated 

by the determination of his soldiers to 

kill their enemies in the field instead of taking 

them prisoners to be spared by Cæsar; and 

his civil supremacy was purchased by colossal 

bribery of the citizens of Rome. What great 

rulers cannot do, codes and religions cannot 

do. Man reads his own nature into every ordinance: 

if you devise a superhuman commandment 

so cunningly that it cannot be misinterpreted 

in terms of his will, he will denounce 

it as seditious blasphemy, or else disregard it 

as either crazy or totally unintelligible. Parliaments 

and synods may tinker as much as 

they please with their codes and creeds as circumstances 

alter the balance of classes and 

their interests; and, as a result of the tinkering, 

there may be an occasional illusion of 

moral evolution, as when the victory of the 

commercial caste over the military caste leads 

to the substitution of social boycotting and pecuniary 

damages for duelling. At certain moments 

there may even be a considerable material 

advance, as when the conquest of political 

power by the working class produces a better 

distribution of wealth through the simple 

action of the selfishness of the new masters; 

but all this is mere readjustment and refor-


mation: until the heart and mind of the people 

is changed the very greatest man will no 

more dare to govern on the assumption that 

all are as great as he than a drover dare leave 

his flock to find its way through the streets 

as he himself would. Until there is an England 

in which every man is a Cromwell, a 

France in which every man is a Napoleon, a 

Rome in which every man is a Cæsar, a Germany 

in which every man is a Luther plus a 

Goethe, the world will be no more improved 

by its heroes than a Brixton villa is improved 

by the pyramid of Cheops. The production of 

such nations is the only real change possible 

to us. 

IV. MAN’S OBJECTION TO 

HIS OWN IMPROVEMENT 

But would such a change be tolerated if Man 

must rise above himself to desire it It would, 

through his misconception of its nature. Man 

does desire an ideal Superman with such energy 

as he can spare from his nutrition, and 

has in every age magnified the best living substitute 

for it he can find. His least incompetent 

general is set up as an Alexander; his 

king is the first gentleman in the world; his 

Pope is a saint. He is never without an array 

of human idols who are all nothing but 

sham Supermen. That the real Superman 

will snap his superfingers at all Man’s present 

trumpery ideals of right, duty, honor, justice,


religion, even decency, and accept moral obligations 

beyond present human endurance, is 

a thing that contemporary Man does not foresee: 

in fact he does not notice it when our casual 

Supermen do it in his very face. He actually 

does it himself every day without knowing 

it. He will therefore make no objection to 

the production of a race of what he calls Great 

Men or Heroes, because he will imagine them, 

not as true Supermen, but as himself endowed 

with infinite brains, infinite courage, and infinite 

money. 

The most troublesome opposition will arise 

from the general fear of mankind that any interference 

with our conjugal customs will be 

an interference with our pleasures and our 

romance. This fear, by putting on airs of offended 

morality, has always intimidated people 

who have not measured its essential weakness; 

but it will prevail with those degenerates 

only in whom the instinct of fertility has 

faded into a mere itching for pleasure. The 

modern devices for combining pleasure with 

sterility, now universally known and accessible, 

enable these persons to weed themselves 

out of the race, a process already vigorously 

at work; and the consequent survival of the 

intelligently fertile means the survival of the 

partizans of the Superman; for what is proposed 

is nothing but the replacement of the 

old unintelligent, inevitable, almost unconscious 

fertility by an intelligently controlled, 

conscious fertility, and the elimination of the 

mere voluptuary from the evolutionary pro-


cess. 1 Even if this selective agency had not 

been invented, the purpose of the race would 

still shatter the opposition of individual instincts. 

Not only do the bees and the ants 

satisfy their reproductive and parental instincts 

vicariously; but marriage itself successfully 

imposes celibacy on millions of unmarried 

normal men and women. In short, 

the individual instinct in this matter, overwhelming 

as it is thoughtlessly supposed to 

be, is really a finally negligible one. 

V. THE POLITICAL NEED 

FOR THE SUPERMAN 

The need for the Superman is, in its most imperative 

aspect, a political one. We have been 

driven to Proletarian Democracy by the fail- 

1 The part played in evolution by the voluptuary will 

be the same as that already played by the glutton. The 

glutton, as the man with the strongest motive for nourishing 

himself, will always take more pains than his 

fellows to get food. When food is so difficult to get that 

only great exertions can secure a sufficient supply of 

it, the glutton’s appetite develops his cunning and enterprise 

to the utmost; and he becomes not only the 

best fed but the ablest man in the community. But in 

more hospitable climates, or where the social organization 

of the food supply makes it easy for a man to 

overeat, then the glutton eats himself out of health and 

finally out of existence. All other voluptuaries prosper 

and perish in the same way; way; and this is why 

the survival of the fittest means finally the survival of 

the self-controlled, because they alone can adapt themselves 

to the perpetual shifting of conditions produced 

by industrial progress.


ure of all the alternative systems; for these 

depended on the existence of Supermen acting 

as despots or oligarchs; and not only 

were these Supermen not always or even often 

forthcoming at the right moment and in 

an eligible social position, but when they were 

forthcoming they could not, except for a short 

time and by morally suicidal coercive methods, 

impose superhumanity on those whom 

they governed; so, by mere force of “human 

nature,” government by consent of the governed 

has supplanted the old plan of governing 

the citizen as a public-schoolboy is governed. 

Now we have yet to see the man who, having 

any practical experience of Proletarian 

Democracy, has any belief in its capacity for 

solving great political problems, or even for 

doing ordinary parochial work intelligently 

and economically. Only under despotisms and 

oligarchies has the Radical faith in “universal 

suffrage” as a political panacea arisen. It 

withers the moment it is exposed to practical 

trial, because Democracy cannot rise above 

the level of the human material of which its 

voters are made. Switzerland seems happy in 

comparison with Russia; but if Russia were as 

small as Switzerland, and had her social problems 

simplified in the same way by impregnable 

natural fortifications and a population 

educated by the same variety and intimacy of 

international intercourse, there might be little 

to choose between them. At all events Australia 

and Canada, which are virtually protected 

democratic republics, and France and


the United States, which are avowedly independent 

democratic republics, are neither 

healthy, wealthy, nor wise; and they would be 

worse instead of better if their popular ministers 

were not experts in the art of dodging 

popular enthusiasms and duping popular 

ignorance. The politician who once had 

to learn how to flatter Kings has now to 

learn how to fascinate, amuse, coax, humbug, 

frighten, or otherwise strike the fancy of the 

electorate; and though in advanced modern 

States, where the artizan is better educated 

than the King, it takes a much bigger man to 

be a successful demagogue than to be a successful 

courtier, yet he who holds popular convictions 

with prodigious energy is the man for 

the mob, whilst the frailer sceptic who is cautiously 

feeling his way towards the next century 

has no chance unless he happens by accident 

to have the specific artistic talent of 

the mountebank as well, in which case it is 

as a mountebank that he catches votes, and 

not as a meliorist. Consequently the demagogue, 

though he professes (and fails) to readjust 

matters in the interests of the majority 

of the electors, yet stereotypes mediocrity, organizes 

intolerance, disparages exhibitions of 

uncommon qualities, and glorifies conspicuous 

exhibitions of common ones. He manages 

a small job well: he muddles rhetorically 

through a large one. When a great political 

movement takes place, it is not consciously 

led nor organized: the unconscious 

self in mankind breaks its way through the 

problem as an elephant breaks through a jun-


gle; and the politicians make speeches about 

whatever happens in the process, which, with 

the best intentions, they do all in their power 

to prevent. Finally, when social aggregation 

arrives at a point demanding international organization 

before the demagogues and electorates 

have learnt how to manage even a 

country parish properly much less internationalize 

Constantinople, the whole political 

business goes to smash; and presently we 

have Ruins of Empires, New Zealanders sitting 

on a broken arch of London Bridge, and 

so forth. 

To that recurrent catastrophe we shall 

certainly come again unless we can have a 

Democracy of Supermen; and the production 

of such a Democracy is the only change that is 

now hopeful enough to nerve us to the effort 

that Revolution demands. 

VI. PRUDERY EXPLAINED 

Why the bees should pamper their mothers 

whilst we pamper only our operatic prima 

donnas is a question worth reflecting on. Our 

notion of treating a mother is, not to increase 

her supply of food, but to cut it off by forbidding 

her to work in a factory for a month 

after her confinement. Everything that can 

make birth a misfortune to the parents as 

well as a danger to the mother is conscientiously 

done. When a great French writer, 

Emil Zola, alarmed at the sterilization of his 

nation, wrote an eloquent and powerful book


to restore the prestige of parentage, it was at 

once assumed in England that a work of this 

character, with such a title as Fecundity, was 

too abominable to be translated, and that any 

attempt to deal with the relations of the sexes 

from any other than the voluptuary or romantic 

point of view must be sternly put down. 

Now if this assumption were really founded 

on public opinion, it would indicate an attitude 

of disgust and resentment towards the 

Life Force that could only arise in a diseased 

and moribund community in which Ibsen’s 

Hedda Gabler would be the typical woman. 

But it has no vital foundation at all. The 

prudery of the newspapers is, like the prudery 

of the dinner table, a mere difficulty of 

education and language. We are not taught 

to think decently on these subjects, and consequently 

we have no language for them except 

indecent language. We therefore have to 

declare them unfit for public discussion, because 

the only terms in which we can conduct 

the discussion are unfit for public use. Physiologists, 

who have a technical vocabulary at 

their disposal, find no difficulty; and masters 

of language who think decently can write popular 

stories like Zola’s Fecundity or Tolstoy’s 

Resurrection without giving the smallest offence 

to readers who can also think decently. 

But the ordinary modern journalist, who has 

never discussed such matters except in ribaldry, 

cannot write a simple comment on a divorce 

case without a conscious shamefulness 

or a furtive facetiousness that makes it impossible 

to read the comment aloud in company.


All this ribaldry and prudery (the two are the 

same) does not mean that people do not feel 

decently on the subject: on the contrary, it is 

just the depth and seriousness of our feeling 

that makes its desecration by vile language 

and coarse humor intolerable; so that at last 

we cannot bear to have it spoken of at all because 

only one in a thousand can speak of it 

without wounding our self-respect, especially 

the self-respect of women. Add to the horrors 

of popular language the horrors of popular 

poverty. In crowded populations poverty 

destroys the possibility of cleanliness; and in 

the absence of cleanliness many of the natural 

conditions of life become offensive and noxious, 

with the result that at last the association 

of uncleanliness with these natural conditions 

becomes so overpowering that among 

civilized people (that is, people massed in the 

labyrinths of slums we call cities), half their 

bodily life becomes a guilty secret, unmentionable 

except to the doctor in emergencies; and 

Hedda Gabler shoots herself because maternity 

is so unladylike. In short, popular prudery 

is only a mere incident of popular squalor: 

the subjects which it taboos remain the most 

interesting and earnest of subjects in spite of 

it.


VII. PROGRESS AN 

ILLUSION 

Unfortunately the earnest people get drawn 

off the track of evolution by the illusion of 

progress. Any Socialist can convince us easily 

that the difference between Man as he is 

and Man as he might become, without further 

evolution, under millennial conditions of 

nutrition, environment, and training, is enormous. 

He can shew that inequality and iniquitous 

distribution of wealth and allotment 

of labor have arisen through an unscientific 

economic system, and that Man, faulty as he 

is, no more intended to establish any such 

ordered disorder than a moth intends to be 

burnt when it flies into a candle flame. He can 

shew that the difference between the grace 

and strength of the acrobat and the bent back 

of the rheumatic field laborer is a difference 

produced by conditions, not by nature. He can 

shew that many of the most detestable human 

vices are not radical, but are mere reactions 

of our institutions on our very virtues. The 

Anarchist, the Fabian, the Salvationist, the 

Vegetarian, the doctor, the lawyer, the parson, 

the professor of ethics, the gymnast, the soldier, 

the sportsman, the inventor, the political 

program-maker, all have some prescription 

for bettering us; and almost all their remedies 

are physically possible and aimed at admitted 

evils. To them the limit of progress is, 

at worst, the completion of all the suggested 

reforms and the levelling up of all men to


the point attained already by the most highly 

nourished and cultivated in mind and body. 

Here, then, as it seems to them, is an enormous 

field for the energy of the reformer. Here 

are many noble goals attainable by many of 

those paths up the Hill Difficulty along which 

great spirits love to aspire. Unhappily, the hill 

will never be climbed by Man as we know him. 

It need not be denied that if we all struggled 

bravely to the end of the reformers’ paths we 

should improve the world prodigiously. But 

there is no more hope in that If than in the 

equally plausible assurance that if the sky 

falls we shall all catch larks. We are not going 

to tread those paths: we have not sufficient 

energy. We do not desire the end enough: 

indeed in more cases we do not effectively desire 

it at all. Ask any man would he like to 

be a better man; and he will say yes, most piously. 

Ask him would he like to have a million 

of money; and he will say yes, most sincerely. 

But the pious citizen who would like 

to be a better man goes on behaving just as 

he did before. And the tramp who would like 

the million does not take the trouble to earn 

ten shillings: multitudes of men and women, 

all eager to accept a legacy of a million, live 

and die without having ever possessed five 

pounds at one time, although beggars have 

died in rags on mattresses stuffed with gold 

which they accumulated because they desired 

it enough to nerve them to get it and keep it. 

The economists who discovered that demand 

created supply soon had to limit the proposition 

to “effective demand,” which turned out,


in the final analysis, to mean nothing more 

than supply itself; and this holds good in politics, 

morals, and all other departments as 

well: the actual supply is the measure of the 

effective demand; and the mere aspirations 

and professions produce nothing. No community 

has ever yet passed beyond the initial 

phases in which its pugnacity and fanaticism 

enabled it to found a nation, and its cupidity 

to establish and develop a commercial civilization. 

Even these stages have never been attained 

by public spirit, but always by intolerant 

wilfulness and brute force. Take the Reform 

Bill of 1832 as an example of a conflict 

between two sections of educated Englishmen 

concerning a political measure which was as 

obviously necessary and inevitable as any political 

measure has ever been or is ever likely 

to be. It was not passed until the gentlemen of 

Birmingham had made arrangements to cut 

the throats of the gentlemen of St. James’s 

parish in due military form. It would not have 

been passed to this day if there had been no 

force behind it except the logic and public conscience 

of the Utilitarians. A despotic ruler 

with as much sense as Queen Elizabeth would 

have done better than the mob of grown-up 

Eton boys who governed us then by privilege, 

and who, since the introduction of practically 

Manhood Suffrage in 1884, now govern us at 

the request of proletarian Democracy. 

At the present time we have, instead of 

the Utilitarians, the Fabian Society, with its 

peaceful, constitutional, moral, economical 

policy of Socialism, which needs nothing for


its bloodless and benevolent realization except 

that the English people shall understand 

it and approve of it. But why are the Fabians 

well spoken of in circles where thirty 

years ago the word Socialist was understood 

as equivalent to cut-throat and incendiary 

Not because the English have the smallest 

intention of studying or adopting the Fabian 

policy, but because they believe that the Fabians, 

by eliminating the element of intimidation 

from the Socialist agitation, have drawn 

the teeth of insurgent poverty and saved the 

existing order from the only method of attack 

it really fears. Of course, if the nation 

adopted the Fabian policy, it would be carried 

out by brute force exactly as our present property 

system is. It would become the law; and 

those who resisted it would be fined, sold up, 

knocked on the head by policemen, thrown 

into prison, and in the last resort “executed” 

just as they are when they break the present 

law. But as our proprietary class has no fear 

of that conversion taking place, whereas it 

does fear sporadic cut-throats and gunpowder 

plots, and strives with all its might to hide the 

fact that there is no moral difference whatever 

between the methods by which it enforces its 

proprietary rights and the method by which 

the dynamitard asserts his conception of natural 

human rights, the Fabian Society is patted 

on the back just as the Christian Social 

Union is, whilst the Socialist who says bluntly 

that a Social revolution can be made only as 

all other revolutions have been made, by the 

people who want it killing, coercing, and in-


timidating the people who don’t want it, is 

denounced as a misleader of the people, and 

imprisoned with hard labor to shew him how 

much sincerity there is in the objection of his 

captors to physical force. 

Are we then to repudiate Fabian methods, 

and return to those of the barricader, or adopt 

those of the dynamitard and the assassin On 

the contrary, we are to recognize that both 

are fundamentally futile. It seems easy for 

the dynamitard to say “Have you not just admitted 

that nothing is ever conceded except to 

physical force Did not Gladstone admit that 

the Irish Church was disestablished, not by 

the spirit of Liberalism, but by the explosion 

which wrecked Clerkenwell prison” Well, we 

need not foolishly and timidly deny it. Let 

it be fully granted. Let us grant, further, 

that all this lies in the nature of things; that 

the most ardent Socialist, if he owns property, 

can by no means do otherwise than Conservative 

proprietors until property is forcibly abolished 

by the whole nation; nay, that ballots, 

and parliamentary divisions, in spite of their 

vain ceremony, of discussion, differ from battles 

only as the bloodless surrender of an outnumbered 

force in the field differs from Waterloo 

or Trafalgar. I make a present of all 

these admissions to the Fenian who collects 

money from thoughtless Irishmen in America 

to blow up Dublin Castle; to the detective 

who persuades foolish young workmen to order 

bombs from the nearest ironmonger and 

then delivers them up to penal servitude; to 

our military and naval commanders who be-


lieve, not in preaching, but in an ultimatum 

backed by plenty of lyddite; and, generally, to 

all whom it may concern. But of what use is 

it to substitute the way of the reckless and 

bloodyminded for the way of the cautious and 

humane Is England any the better for the 

wreck of Clerkenwell prison, or Ireland for the 

disestablishment of the Irish Church Is there 

the smallest reason to suppose that the nation 

which sheepishly let Charles and Laud 

and Strafford coerce it, gained anything because 

it afterwards, still more sheepishly, let 

a few strongminded Puritans, inflamed by the 

masterpieces of Jewish revolutionary literature, 

cut off the heads of the three Suppose 

the Gunpowder plot had succeeded, and 

set a Fawkes dynasty permanently on the 

throne, would it have made any difference to 

the present state of the nation The guillotine 

was used in France up to the limit of 

human endurance, both on Girondins and Jacobins. 

Fouquier Tinville followed Marie Antoinette 

to the scaffold; and Marie Antoinette 

might have asked the crowd, just as pointedly 

as Fouquier did, whether their bread would be 

any cheaper when her head was off. And what 

came of it all The Imperial France of the 

Rougon Macquart family, and the Republican 

France of the Panama scandal and the Dreyfus 

case. Was the difference worth the guillotining 

of all those unlucky ladies and gentlemen, 

useless and mischievous as many of 

them were Would any sane man guillotine 

a mouse to bring about such a result Turn 

to Republican America. America has no Star


Chamber, and no feudal barons. But it has 

Trusts; and it has millionaires whose factories, 

fenced in by live electric wires and defended 

by Pinkerton retainers with magazine 

rifles, would have made a Radical of Reginald 

Front de Boeuf. Would Washington or 

Franklin have lifted a finger in the cause of 

American Independence if they had foreseen 

its reality 

No: what Cæsar, Cromwell, Napoleon 

could not do with all the physical force and 

moral prestige of the State in their hands, 

cannot be done by enthusiastic criminals and 

lunatics. Even the Jews, who, from Moses 

to Marx and Lassalle, have inspired all the 

revolutions, have had to confess that, after 

all, the dog will return to his vomit and the 

sow that was washed to her wallowing in the 

mire; and we may as well make up our minds 

that Man will return to his idols and his cupidities, 

in spite of “movements” and all revolutions, 

until his nature is changed. Until 

then, his early successes in building commercial 

civilizations (and such civilizations, 

Good Heavens!) are but preliminaries to the 

inevitable later stage, now threatening us, in 

which the passions which built the civilization 

become fatal instead of productive, just as the 

same qualities which make the lion king in 

the forest ensure his destruction when he enters 

a city. Nothing can save society then except 

the clear head and the wide purpose: war 

and competition, potent instruments of selection 

and evolution in one epoch, become ruinous 

instruments of degeneration in the next.


In the breeding of animals and plants, varieties 

which have arisen by selection through 

many generations relapse precipitously into 

the wild type in a generation or two when 

selection ceases; and in the same way a civilization 

in which lusty pugnacity and greed 

have ceased to act as selective agents and 

have begun to obstruct and destroy, rushes 

downwards and backwards with a suddenness 

that enables an observer to see with consternation 

the upward steps of many centuries retraced 

in a single lifetime. This has often occurred 

even within the period covered by history; 

and in every instance the turning point 

has been reached long before the attainment, 

or even the general advocacy on paper, of the 

levelling-up of the mass to the highest point 

attainable by the best nourished and cultivated 

normal individuals. 

We must therefore frankly give up the notion 

that Man as he exists is capable of net 

progress. There will always be an illusion of 

progress, because wherever we are conscious 

of an evil we remedy it, and therefore always 

seem to ourselves to be progressing, forgetting 

that most of the evils we see are the effects, 

finally become acute, of long-unnoticed retrogressions; 

that our compromising remedies 

seldom fully recover the lost ground; above all, 

that on the lines along which we are degenerating, 

good has become evil in our eyes, and 

is being undone in the name of progress precisely 

as evil is undone and replaced by good 

on the lines along which we are evolving. This 

is indeed the Illusion of Illusions; for it gives


us infallible and appalling assurance that if 

our political ruin is to come, it will be effected 

by ardent reformers and supported by enthusiastic 

patriots as a series of necessary steps 

in our progress. Let the Reformer, the Progressive, 

the Meliorist then reconsider himself 

and his eternal ifs and ans which never 

become pots and pans. Whilst Man remains 

what he is, there can be no progress beyond 

the point already attained and fallen headlong 

from at every attempt at civilization; and 

since even that point is but a pinnacle to 

which a few people cling in giddy terror above 

an abyss of squalor, mere progress should no 

longer charm us. 

VIII. THE CONCEIT OF 

CIVILIZATION 

After all, the progress illusion is not so very 

subtle. We begin by reading the satires of 

our fathers’ contemporaries; and we conclude 

(usually quite ignorantly) that the abuses exposed 

by them are things of the past. We 

see also that reforms of crying evils are frequently 

produced by the sectional shifting of 

political power from oppressors to oppressed. 

The poor man is given a vote by the Liberals 

in the hope that he will cast it for his emancipators. 

The hope is not fulfilled; but the lifelong 

imprisonment of penniless men for debt 

ceases; Factory Acts are passed to mitigate 

sweating; schooling is made free and compul-


sory; sanitary by-laws are multiplied; public 

steps are taken to house the masses decently; 

the bare-footed get boots; rags become rare; 

and bathrooms and pianos, smart tweeds and 

starched collars, reach numbers of people who 

once, as “the unsoaped,” played the Jew’s harp 

or the accordion in moleskins and belchers. 

Some of these changes are gains: some of them 

are losses. Some of them are not changes 

at all: all of them are merely the changes 

that money makes. Still, they produce an illusion 

of bustling progress; and the reading 

class infers from them that the abuses of the 

early Victorian period no longer exist except 

as amusing pages in the novels of Dickens. 

But the moment we look for a reform due to 

character and not to money, to statesmanship 

and not to interest or mutiny, we are disillusioned. 

For example, we remembered the maladministration 

and incompetence revealed by 

the Crimean War as part of a bygone state 

of things until the South African war shewed 

that the nation and the War Office, like those 

poor Bourbons who have been so impudently 

blamed for a universal characteristic, had 

learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. We had 

hardly recovered from the fruitless irritation 

of this discovery when it transpired that the 

officers’ mess of our most select regiment included 

a flogging club presided over by the senior 

subaltern. The disclosure provoked some 

disgust at the details of this schoolboyish debauchery, 

but no surprise at the apparent absence 

of any conception of manly honor and 

virtue, of personal courage and self-respect,


in the front rank of our chivalry. In civil affairs 

we had assumed that the sycophancy 

and idolatry which encouraged Charles I. to 

undervalue the Puritan revolt of the XVII 

century had been long outgrown; but it has 

needed nothing but favorable circumstances 

to revive, with added abjectness to compensate 

for its lost piety. We have relapsed into 

disputes about transubstantiation at the very 

moment when the discovery of the wide prevalence 

of theophagy as a tribal custom has deprived 

us of the last excuse for believing that 

our official religious rites differ in essentials 

from those of barbarians. The Christian doctrine 

of the uselessness of punishment and the 

wickedness of revenge has not, in spite of its 

simple common sense, found a single convert 

among the nations: Christianity means nothing 

to the masses but a sensational public execution 

which is made an excuse for other executions. 

In its name we take ten years of a 

thief’s life minute by minute in the slow misery 

and degradation of modern reformed imprisonment 

with as little remorse as Laud and 

his Star Chamber clipped the ears of Bastwick 

and Burton. We dug up and mutilated 

the remains of the Mahdi the other day exactly 

as we dug up and mutilated the remains 

of Cromwell two centuries ago. We 

have demanded the decapitation of the Chinese 

Boxer princes as any Tartar would have 

done; and our military and naval expeditions 

to kill, burn, and destroy tribes and villages 

for knocking an Englishman on the head are 

so common a part of our Imperial routine that


the last dozen of them has not called forth 

as much pity as can be counted on by any 

lady criminal. The judicial use of torture to 

extort confession is supposed to be a relic of 

darker ages; but whilst these pages are being 

written an English judge has sentenced a 

forger to twenty years penal servitude with an 

open declaration that the sentence will be carried 

out in full unless he confesses where he 

has hidden the notes he forged. And no comment 

whatever is made, either on this or on a 

telegram from the seat of war in Somaliland 

mentioning that certain information has been 

given by a prisoner of war “under punishment.” 

Even if these reports are false, the fact 

that they are accepted without protest as indicating 

a natural and proper course of public 

conduct shews that we are still as ready to resort 

to torture as Bacon was. As to vindictive 

cruelty, an incident in the South African war, 

when the relatives and friends of a prisoner 

were forced to witness his execution, betrayed 

a baseness of temper and character which 

hardly leaves us the right to plume ourselves 

on our superiority to Edward III. at the surrender 

of Calais. And the democratic American 

officer indulges in torture in the Philippines 

just as the aristocratic English officer 

did in South Africa. The incidents of the white 

invasion of Africa in search of ivory, gold, 

diamonds, and sport, have proved that the 

modern European is the same beast of prey 

that formerly marched to the conquest of new 

worlds under Alexander, Antony, and Pizarro. 

Parliaments and vestries are just what they


were when Cromwell suppressed them and 

Dickens derided them. The democratic politician 

remains exactly as Plato described him; 

the physician is still the credulous impostor 

and petulant scientific coxcomb whom Molière 

ridiculed; the schoolmaster remains at best a 

pedantic child farmer and at worst a flagellomaniac; 

arbitrations are more dreaded by 

honest men than lawsuits; the philanthropist 

is still a parasite on misery as the doctor is on 

disease; the miracles of priestcraft are none 

the less fraudulent and mischievous because 

they are now called scientific experiments and 

conducted by professors; witchcraft, in the 

modern form of patent medicines and prophylactic 

inoculations, is rampant; the landowner 

who is no longer powerful enough to set the 

mantrap of Rhampsinitis improves on it by 

barbed wire; the modern gentleman who is too 

lazy to daub his face with vermilion as a symbol 

of bravery employs a laundress to daub his 

shirt with starch as a symbol of cleanliness; 

we shake our heads at the dirt of the middle 

ages in cities made grimy with soot and foul 

and disgusting with shameless tobacco smoking; 

holy water, in its latest form of disinfectant 

fluid, is more widely used and believed 

in than ever; public health authorities deliberately 

go through incantations with burning 

sulphur (which they know to be useless) because 

the people believe in it as devoutly as 

the Italian peasant believes in the liquefaction 

of the blood of St Januarius; and straightforward 

public lying has reached gigantic developments, 

there being nothing to choose in


this respect between the pickpocket at the police 

station and the minister on the treasury 

bench, the editor in the newspaper office, the 

city magnate advertizing bicycle tires that do 

not side-slip, the clergyman subscribing the 

thirty-nine articles, and the vivisector who 

pledges his knightly honor that no animal operated 

on in the physiological laboratory suffers 

the slightest pain. Hypocrisy is at its 

worst; for we not only persecute bigotedly but 

sincerely in the name of the cure-mongering 

witchcraft we do believe in, but callously and 

hypocritically in the name of the Evangelical 

creed that our rulers privately smile at 

as the Italian patricians of the fifth century 

smiled at Jupiter and Venus. Sport is, as it 

has always been, murderous excitement; the 

impulse to slaughter is universal; and museums 

are set up throughout the country to encourage 

little children and elderly gentlemen 

to make collections of corpses preserved in alcohol, 

and to steal birds’ eggs and keep them 

as the red Indian used to keep scalps. Coercion 

with the lash is as natural to an Englishman 

as it was to Solomon spoiling Rehoboam: 

indeed, the comparison is unfair to the Jews 

in view of the facts that the Mosaic law forbade 

more than forty lashes in the name of 

humanity, and that floggings of a thousand 

lashes were inflicted on English soldiers in 

the XVIII and XIX centuries, and would be inflicted 

still but for the change in the balance of 

political power between the military caste and 

the commercial classes and the proletariat. 

In spite of that change, flogging is still an


institution in the public school, in the military 

prison, on the training ship, and in that 

school of littleness called the home. The lascivious 

clamor of the flagellomaniac for more 

of it, constant as the clamor for more insolence, 

more war, and lower rates, is tolerated 

and even gratified because, having no moral 

ends in view, we have sense enough to see that 

nothing but brute coercion can impose our 

selfish will on others. Cowardice is universal; 

patriotism, public opinion, parental duty, discipline, 

religion, morality, are only fine names 

for intimidation; and cruelty, gluttony, and 

credulity keep cowardice in countenance. We 

cut the throat of a calf and hang it up by the 

heels to bleed to death so that our veal cutlet 

may be white; we nail geese to a board and 

cram them with food because we like the taste 

of liver disease; we tear birds to pieces to decorate 

our women’s hats; we mutilate domestic 

animals for no reason at all except to follow 

an instinctively cruel fashion; and we connive 

at the most abominable tortures in the hope 

of discovering some magical cure for our own 

diseases by them. 

Now please observe that these are not exceptional 

developments of our admitted vices, 

deplored and prayed against by all good men. 

Not a word has been said here of the excesses 

of our Neros, of whom we have the full usual 

percentage. With the exception of the few military 

examples, which are mentioned mainly 

to shew that the education and standing of 

a gentleman, reinforced by the strongest conventions 

of honor, esprit de corps, publicity


and responsibility, afford no better guarantees 

of conduct than the passions of a mob, the 

illustrations given above are commonplaces 

taken from the daily practices of our best citizens, 

vehemently defended in our newspapers 

and in our pulpits. The very humanitarians 

who abhor them are stirred to murder by 

them: the dagger of Brutus and Ravaillac is 

still active in the hands of Caserio and Luccheni; 

and the pistol has come to its aid in the 

hands of Guiteau and Czolgosz. Our remedies 

are still limited to endurance or assassination; 

and the assassin is still judicially assassinated 

on the principle that two blacks make 

a white. The only novelty is in our methods: 

through the discovery of dynamite the overloaded 

musket of Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh 

has been superseded by the bomb; but Ravachol’s 

heart burns just as Hamilton’s did. The 

world will not bear thinking of to those who 

know what it is, even with the largest discount 

for the restraints of poverty on the poor 

and cowardice on the rich. 

All that can be said for us is that people 

must and do live and let live up to a certain 

point. Even the horse, with his docked tail 

and bitted jaw, finds his slavery mitigated by 

the fact that a total disregard of his need for 

food and rest would put his master to the expense 

of buying a new horse every second day; 

for you cannot work a horse to death and then 

pick up another one for nothing, as you can a 

laborer. But this natural check on inconsiderate 

selfishness is itself checked, partly by 

our shortsightedness, and partly by deliber-


ate calculation; so that beside the man who, 

to his own loss, will shorten his horse’s life in 

mere stinginess, we have the tramway company 

which discovers actuarially that though 

a horse may live from 24 to 40 years, yet it 

pays better to work him to death in 4 and then 

replace him by a fresh victim. And human 

slavery, which has reached its worst recorded 

point within our own time in the form of free 

wage labor, has encountered the same personal 

and commercial limits to both its aggravation 

and its mitigation. Now that the 

freedom of wage labor has produced a scarcity 

of it, as in South Africa, the leading English 

newspaper and the leading English weekly 

review have openly and without apology demanded 

a return to compulsory labor: that is, 

to the methods by which, as we believe, the 

Egyptians built the pyramids. We know now 

that the crusade against chattel slavery in the 

XIX century succeeded solely because chattel 

slavery was neither the most effective nor the 

least humane method of labor exploitation; 

and the world is now feeling its way towards 

a still more effective system which shall abolish 

the freedom of the worker without again 

making his exploiter responsible for him. 

Still, there is always some mitigation: 

there is the fear of revolt; and there are the 

effects of kindliness and affection. Let it be 

repeated therefore that no indictment is here 

laid against the world on the score of what 

its criminals and monsters do. The fires of 

Smithfield and of the Inquisition were lighted 

by earnestly pious people, who were kind and


good as kindness and goodness go. And when 

a negro is dipped in kerosene and set on fire 

in America at the present time, he is not a 

good man lynched by ruffians: he is a criminal 

lynched by crowds of respectable, charitable, 

virtuously indignant, high-minded citizens, 

who, though they act outside the law, 

are at least more merciful than the American 

legislators and judges who not so long 

ago condemned men to solitary confinement 

for periods, not of five months, as our own 

practice is, but of five years and more. The 

things that our moral monsters do may be 

left out of account with St. Bartholomew 

massacres and other momentary outbursts of 

social disorder. Judge us by the admitted 

and respected practice of our most reputable 

circles; and, if you know the facts and are 

strong enough to look them in the face, you 

must admit that unless we are replaced by a 

more highly evolved animal—in short, by the 

Superman—the world must remain a den of 

dangerous animals among whom our few accidental 

supermen, our Shakespears, Goethes, 

Shelleys, and their like, must live as precariously 

as lion tamers do, taking the humor of 

their situation, and the dignity of their superiority, 

as a set-off to the horror of the one and 

the loneliness of the other.


IX. THE VERDICT OF 

HISTORY 

It may be said that though the wild beast 

breaks out in Man and casts him back momentarily 

into barbarism under the excitement 

of war and crime, yet his normal life is 

higher than the normal life of his forefathers. 

This view is very acceptable to Englishmen, 

who always lean sincerely to virtue’s side as 

long as it costs them nothing either in money 

or in thought. They feel deeply the injustice 

of foreigners, who allow them no credit for 

this conditional high-mindedness. But there 

is no reason to suppose that our ancestors 

were less capable of it than we are. To all 

such claims for the existence of a progressive 

moral evolution operating visibly from 

grandfather to grandson, there is the conclusive 

reply that a thousand years of such 

evolution would have produced enormous social 

changes, of which the historical evidence 

would be overwhelming. But not Macaulay 

himself, the most confident of Whig meliorists, 

can produce any such evidence that will 

bear cross-examination. Compare our conduct 

and our codes with those mentioned contemporarily 

in such ancient scriptures and classics 

as have come down to us, and you will 

find no jot of ground for the belief that any 

moral progress whatever has been made in 

historic time, in spite of all the romantic attempts 

of historians to reconstruct the past 

on that assumption. Within that time it has


happened to nations as to private families and 

individuals that they have flourished and decayed, 

repented and hardened their hearts, 

submitted and protested, acted and reacted, 

oscillated between natural and artificial sanitation 

(the oldest house in the world, unearthed 

the other day in Crete, has quite modern 

sanitary arrangements), and rung a thousand 

changes on the different scales of income 

and pressure of population, firmly believing 

all the time that mankind was advancing 

by leaps and bounds because men 

were constantly busy. And the mere chapter 

of accidents has left a small accumulation 

of chance discoveries, such as the wheel, the 

arch, the safety pin, gunpowder, the magnet, 

the Voltaic pile and so forth: things which, unlike 

the gospels and philosophic treatises of 

the sages, can be usefully understood and applied 

by common men; so that steam locomotion 

is possible without a nation of Stephensons, 

although national Christianity is impossible 

without a nation of Christs. But does any 

man seriously believe that the chauffeur who 

drives a motor car from Paris to Berlin is a 

more highly evolved man than the charioteer 

of Achilles, or that a modern Prime Minister 

is a more enlightened ruler than Cæsar because 

he rides a tricycle, writes his dispatches 

by the electric light, and instructs his stockbroker 

through the telephone 

Enough, then, of this goose-cackle about 

Progress: Man, as he is, never will nor can add 

a cubit to his stature by any of its quackeries, 

political, scientific, educational, religious, or


artistic. What is likely to happen when this 

conviction gets into the minds of the men 

whose present faith in these illusions is the 

cement of our social system, can be imagined 

only by those who know how suddenly a civilization 

which has long ceased to think (or in 

the old phrase, to watch and pray) can fall to 

pieces when the vulgar belief in its hypocrisies 

and impostures can no longer hold out against 

its failures and scandals. When religious and 

ethical formulae become so obsolete that no 

man of strong mind can believe them, they 

have also reached the point at which no man 

of high character will profess them; and from, 

that moment until they are formally disestablished, 

they stand at the door of every profession 

and every public office to keep out every 

able man who is not a sophist or a liar. A 

nation which revises its parish councils once 

in three years, but will not revise its articles 

of religion once in three hundred, even 

when those articles avowedly began as a political 

compromise dictated by Mr Facing-Both- 

Ways, is a nation that needs remaking. 

Our only hope, then, is in evolution. We 

must replace the man by the superman. It 

is frightful for the citizen, as the years pass 

him, to see his own contemporaries so exactly 

reproduced by the younger generation, 

that his companions of thirty years ago have 

their counterparts in every city crowd, where 

he had to check himself repeatedly in the 

act of saluting as an old friend some young 

man to whom he is only an elderly stranger. 

All hope of advance dies in his bosom as he


watches them: he knows that they will do just 

what their fathers did, and that the few voices 

which will still, as always before, exhort them 

to do something else and be something better, 

might as well spare their breath to cool 

their porridge (if they can get any). Men like 

Ruskin and Carlyle will preach to Smith and 

Brown for the sake of preaching, just as St 

Francis preached to the birds and St Anthony 

to the fishes. But Smith and Brown, like the 

fishes and birds, remain as they are; and poets 

who plan Utopias and prove that nothing 

is necessary for their realization but that 

Man should will them, perceive at last, like 

Richard Wagner, that the fact to be faced is 

that Man does not effectively will them. And 

he never will until he becomes Superman. 

And so we arrive at the end of the Socialist’s 

dream of “the socialization of the means 

of production and exchange,” of the Positivist’s 

dream of moralizing the capitalist, and of 

the ethical professor’s, legislator’s, educator’s 

dream of putting commandments and codes 

and lessons and examination marks on a man 

as harness is put on a horse, ermine on a 

judge, pipeclay on a soldier, or a wig on an actor, 

and pretending that his nature has been 

changed. The only fundamental and possible 

Socialism is the socialization of the selective 

breeding of Man: in other terms, of human 

evolution. We must eliminate the Yahoo, or 

his vote will wreck the commonwealth.


X. THE METHOD 

As to the method, what can be said as yet 

except that where there is a will, there is a 

way If there be no will, we are lost. That 

is a possibility for our crazy little empire, if 

not for the universe; and as such possibilities 

are not to be entertained without despair, we 

must, whilst we survive, proceed on the assumption 

that we have still energy enough to 

not only will to live, but to will to live better. 

That may mean that we must establish 

a State Department of Evolution, with a seat 

in the Cabinet for its chief, and a revenue to 

defray the cost of direct State experiments, 

and provide inducements to private persons 

to achieve successful results. It may mean 

a private society or a chartered company for 

the improvement of human live stock. But 

for the present it is far more likely to mean a 

blatant repudiation of such proposals as indecent 

and immoral, with, nevertheless, a general 

secret pushing of the human will in the 

repudiated direction; so that all sorts of institutions 

and public authorities will under 

some pretext or other feel their way furtively 

towards the Superman. Mr Graham Wallas 

has already ventured to suggest, as Chairman 

of the School Management Committee of the 

London School Board, that the accepted policy 

of the Sterilization of the Schoolmistress, 

however administratively convenient, is open 

to criticism from the national stock-breeding 

point of view; and this is as good an example 

as any of the way in which the drift towards


the Superman may operate in spite of all our 

hypocrisies. One thing at least is clear to begin 

with. If a woman can, by careful selection 

of a father, and nourishment of herself, produce 

a citizen with efficient senses, sound organs, 

and a good digestion, she should clearly 

be secured a sufficient reward for that natural 

service to make her willing to undertake 

and repeat it. Whether she be financed in the 

undertaking by herself, or by the father, or by 

a speculative capitalist, or by a new department 

of, say, the Royal Dublin Society, or (as 

at present) by the War Office maintaining her 

“on the strength” and authorizing a particular 

soldier to marry her, or by a local authority 

under a by-law directing that women may under 

certain circumstances have a year’s leave 

of absence on full salary, or by the central government, 

does not matter provided the result 

be satisfactory. 

It is a melancholy fact that as the vast majority 

of women and their husbands have, under 

existing circumstances, not enough nourishment, 

no capital, no credit, and no knowledge 

of science or business, they would, if 

the State would pay for birth as it now pays 

for death, be exploited by joint stock companies 

for dividends, just as they are in ordinary 

industries. Even a joint stock human 

stud farm (piously disguised as a reformed 

Foundling Hospital or something of that sort) 

might well, under proper inspection and regulation, 

produce better results than our present 

reliance on promiscuous marriage. It may 

be objected that when an ordinary contractor


produces stores for sale to the Government, 

and the Government rejects them as not up to 

the required standard, the condemned goods 

are either sold for what they will fetch or else 

scrapped: that is, treated as waste material; 

whereas if the goods consisted of human beings, 

all that could be done would be to let 

them loose or send them to the nearest workhouse. 

But there is nothing new in private 

enterprise throwing its human refuse on the 

cheap labor market and the workhouse; and 

the refuse of the new industry would presumably 

be better bred than the staple product 

of ordinary poverty. In our present happygo-lucky 

industrial disorder, all the human 

products, successful or not, would have to be 

thrown on the labor market; but the unsuccessful 

ones would not entitle the company to 

a bounty and so would be a dead loss to it. The 

practical commercial difficulty would be the 

uncertainty and the cost in time and money 

of the first experiments. Purely commercial 

capital would not touch such heroic operations 

during the experimental stage; and in any 

case the strength of mind needed for so momentous 

a new departure could not be fairly 

expected from the Stock Exchange. It will 

have to be handled by statesmen with character 

enough to tell our democracy and plutocracy 

that statecraft does not consist in flattering 

their follies or applying their suburban 

standards of propriety to the affairs of 

four continents. The matter must be taken 

up either by the State or by some organization 

strong enough to impose respect upon the


State. 

The novelty of any such experiment, however, 

is only in the scale of it. In one conspicuous 

case, that of royalty, the State does 

already select the parents on purely political 

grounds; and in the peerage, though the 

heir to a dukedom is legally free to marry a 

dairymaid, yet the social pressure on him to 

confine his choice to politically and socially 

eligible mates is so overwhelming that he is 

really no more free to marry the dairymaid 

than George IV was to marry Mrs Fitzherbert; 

and such a marriage could only occur as 

a result of extraordinary strength of character 

on the part of the dairymaid acting upon 

extraordinary weakness on the part of the 

duke. Let those who think the whole conception 

of intelligent breeding absurd and scandalous 

ask themselves why George IV was 

not allowed to choose his own wife whilst any 

tinker could marry whom he pleased Simply 

because it did not matter a rap politically 

whom the tinker married, whereas it mattered 

very much whom the king married. The 

way in which all considerations of the king’s 

personal rights, of the claims of the heart, of 

the sanctity of the marriage oath, and of romantic 

morality crumpled up before this political 

need shews how negligible all these apparently 

irresistible prejudices are when they 

come into conflict with the demand for quality 

in our rulers. We learn the same lesson from 

the case of the soldier, whose marriage, when 

it is permitted at all, is despotically controlled 

with a view solely to military efficiency.


Well, nowadays it is not the King that 

rules, but the tinker. Dynastic wars are no 

longer feared, dynastic alliances no longer 

valued. Marriages in royal families are becoming 

rapidly less political, and more popular, 

domestic, and romantic. If all the kings 

in Europe were made as free to-morrow as 

King Cophetua, nobody but their aunts and 

chamberlains would feel a moment’s anxiety 

as to the consequences. On the other hand a 

sense of the social importance of the tinker’s 

marriage has been steadily growing. We have 

made a public matter of his wife’s health in 

the month after her confinement. We have 

taken the minds of his children out of his 

hands and put them into those of our State 

schoolmaster. We shall presently make their 

bodily nourishment independent of him. But 

they are still riff-raff; and to hand the country 

over to riff-raff is national suicide, since riffraff 

can neither govern nor will let anyone else 

govern except the highest bidder of bread and 

circuses. There is no public enthusiast alive of 

twenty years’ practical democratic experience 

who believes in the political adequacy of the 

electorate or of the bodies it elects. The overthrow 

of the aristocrat has created the necessity 

for the Superman. 

Englishmen hate Liberty and Equality too 

much to understand them. But every Englishman 

loves and desires a pedigree. And in that 

he is right. King Demos must be bred like 

all other Kings; and with Must there is no 

arguing. It is idle for an individual writer 

to carry so great a matter further in a pam-


phlet. A conference on the subject is the next 

step needed. It will be attended by men and 

women who, no longer believing that they can 

live for ever, are seeking for some immortal 

work into which they can build the best of 

themselves before their refuse is thrown into 

that arch dust destructor, the cremation furnace. 

Maxims for Revolutionists 

THE GOLDEN RULE 

Do not do unto others as you would that they 

should do unto you. Their tastes may not be 

the same. 

Never resist temptation: prove all things: 

hold fast that which is good. 

Do not love your neighbor as yourself. If 

you are on good terms with yourself it is an 

impertinence: if on bad, an injury. 

The golden rule is that there are no golden 

rules. 

IDOLATRY 

The art of government is the organization of 

idolatry. 

The bureaucracy consists of functionaries; 

the aristocracy, of idols; the democracy, of idolaters.


The populace cannot understand the bureaucracy: 

it can only worship the national 

idols. 

The savage bows down to idols of wood and 

stone: the civilized man to idols of flesh and 

blood. 

A limited monarchy is a device for combining 

the inertia of a wooden idol with the credibility 

of a flesh and blood one. 

When the wooden idol does not answer the 

peasant’s prayer, he beats it: when the flesh 

and blood idol does not satisfy the civilized 

man, he cuts its head off. 

He who slays a king and he who dies for 

him are alike idolaters. 

ROYALTY 

Kings are not born: they are made by artificial 

hallucination. When the process is interrupted 

by adversity at a critical age, as in the 

case of Charles II, the subject becomes sane 

and never completely recovers his kingliness. 

The Court is the servant’s hall of the 

sovereign. 

Vulgarity in a king flatters the majority of 

the nation. 

The flunkeyism propagated by the throne 

is the price we pay for its political convenience. 

DEMOCRACY 

If the lesser mind could measure the greater 

as a foot-rule can measure a pyramid, there


would be finality in universal suffrage. As it 

is, the political problem remains unsolved. 

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent 

many for appointment by the corrupt 

few. 

Democratic republics can no more dispense 

with national idols than monarchies with public 

functionaries. 

Government presents only one problem: 

the discovery of a trustworthy anthropometric 

method. 

IMPERIALISM 

Excess of insularity makes a Briton an Imperialist. 

Excess of local self-assertion makes a 

colonist an Imperialist. 

A colonial Imperialist is one who raises 

colonial troops, equips a colonial squadron, 

claims a Federal Parliament sending its measures 

to the Throne instead of to the Colonial 

Office, and, being finally brought by this 

means into insoluble conflict with the insular 

British Imperialist, “cuts the painter” and 

breaks up the Empire. 

LIBERTY AND EQUALITY 

He who confuses political liberty with freedom 

and political equality with similarity has 

never thought for five minutes about either. 

Nothing can be unconditional: consequently 

nothing can be free.


Liberty means responsibility. That is why 

most men dread it. 

The duke inquires contemptuously 

whether his gamekeeper is the equal of 

the Astronomer Royal; but he insists that 

they shall both be hanged equally if they 

murder him. 

The notion that the colonel need be a better 

man than the private is as confused as the notion 

that the keystone need be stronger than 

the coping stone. 

Where equality is undisputed, so also is 

subordination. 

Equality is fundamental in every department 

of social organization. 

The relation of superior to inferior excludes 

good manners. 

EDUCATION 

When a man teaches something he does not 

know to somebody else who has no aptitude 

for it, and gives him a certificate of proficiency, 

the latter has completed the education of a 

gentleman. 

A fool’s brain digests philosophy into 

folly, science into superstition, and art into 

pedantry. Hence University education. 

The best brought-up children are those 

who have seen their parents as they are. 

Hypocrisy is not the parent’s first duty. 

The vilest abortionist is he who attempts 

to mould a child’s character. 

At the University every great treatise is 

postponed until its author attains impartial


judgment and perfect knowledge. If a horse 

could wait as long for its shoes and would pay 

for them in advance, our blacksmiths would 

all be college dons. 

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches. 

A learned man is an idler who kills time 

with study. Beware of his false knowledge: it 

is more dangerous than ignorance. 

Activity is the only road to knowledge. 

Every fool believes what his teachers tell 

him, and calls his credulity science or morality 

as confidently as his father called it divine 

revelation. 

No man fully capable of his own language 

ever masters another. 

No man can be a pure specialist without 

being in the strict sense an idiot. 

Do not give your children moral and religious 

instruction unless you are quite sure 

they will not take it too seriously. Better be 

the mother of Henri Quatre and Nell Gwynne 

than of Robespierre and Queen Mary Tudor. 

MARRIAGE 

Marriage is popular because it combines the 

maximum of temptation with the maximum 

of opportunity. 

Marriage is the only legal contract which 

abrogates as between the parties all the 

laws that safeguard the particular relation to 

which it refers. 

The essential function of marriage is the 

continuance of the race, as stated in the Book 

of Common Prayer.


The accidental function of marriage is the 

gratification of the amoristic sentiment of 

mankind. 

The artificial sterilization of marriage 

makes it possible for marriage to fulfil its accidental 

function whilst neglecting its essential 

one. 

The most revolutionary invention of the 

XIX century was the artificial sterilization of 

marriage. 

Any marriage system which condemns a 

majority of the population to celibacy will be 

violently wrecked on the pretext that it outrages 

morality. 

Polygamy, when tried under modern democratic 

conditions, as by the Mormons, is 

wrecked by the revolt of the mass of inferior 

men who are condemned to celibacy by it; for 

the maternal instinct leads a woman to prefer 

a tenth share in a first rate man to the exclusive 

possession of a third rate one. Polyandry 

has not been tried under these conditions. 

The minimum of national celibacy (ascertained 

by dividing the number of males in 

the community by the number of females, and 

taking the quotient as the number of wives or 

husbands permitted to each person) is secured 

in England (where the quotient is 1) by the institution 

of monogamy. 

The modern sentimental term for the national 

minimum of celibacy is Purity. 

Marriage, or any other form of promiscuous 

amoristic monogamy, is fatal to large 

States because it puts its ban on the deliberate 

breeding of man as a political animal.


CRIME AND PUNISHMENT 

All scoundrelism is summed up in the phrase 

“Que Messieurs les Assassins commencent!” 

The man who has graduated from the flogging 

block at Eton to the bench from which 

he sentences the garotter to be flogged is the 

same social product as the garotter who has 

been kicked by his father and cuffed by his 

mother until he has grown strong enough to 

throttle and rob the rich citizen whose money 

he desires. 

Imprisonment is as irrevocable as death. 

Criminals do not die by the hands of the 

law. They die by the hands of other men. 

The assassin Czolgosz made President 

McKinley a hero by assassinating him. The 

United States of America made Czolgosz a 

hero by the same process. 

Assassination on the scaffold is the worst 

form of assassination, because there it is invested 

with the approval of society. 

It is the deed that teaches, not the name 

we give it. Murder and capital punishment 

are not opposites that cancel one another, but 

similars that breed their kind. 

Crime is only the retail department of 

what, in wholesale, we call penal law. 

When a man wants to murder a tiger he 

calls it sport: when the tiger wants to murder 

him he calls it ferocity. The distinction between 

Crime and Justice is no greater. 

Whilst we have prisons it matters little 

which of us occupy the cells. 

The most anxious man in a prison is the


governor. 

It is not necessary to replace a guillotined 

criminal: it is necessary to replace a guillotined 

social system. 

TITLES 

Titles distinguish the mediocre, embarrass 

the superior, and are disgraced by the inferior. 

Great men refuse titles because they are 

jealous of them. 

HONOR 

There are no perfectly honorable men; but every 

true man has one main point of honor and 

a few minor ones. 

You cannot believe in honor until you have 

achieved it. Better keep yourself clean and 

bright: you are the window through which you 

must see the world. 

Your word can never be as good as your 

bond, because your memory can never be as 

trustworthy as your honor. 

PROPERTY 

Property, said Proudhon, is theft. This is the 

only perfect truism that has been uttered on 

the subject. 

SERVANTS 

When domestic servants are treated as human 

beings it is not worth while to keep them.


The relation of master and servant is advantageous 

only to masters who do not scruple 

to abuse their authority, and to servants 

who do not scruple to abuse their trust. 

The perfect servant, when his master 

makes humane advances to him, feels that 

his existence is threatened, and hastens to 

change his place. 

Masters and servants are both tyrannical; 

but the masters are the more dependent of the 

two. 

A man enjoys what he uses, not what his 

servants use. 

Man is the only animal which esteems itself 

rich in proportion to the number and voracity 

of its parasites. 

Ladies and gentlemen are permitted to 

have friends in the kennel, but not in the 

kitchen. 

Domestic servants, by making spoiled children 

of their masters, are forced to intimidate 

them in order to be able to live with them. 

In a slave state, the slaves rule: in Mayfair, 

the tradesman rules. 

HOW TO BEAT CHILDREN 

If you strike a child, take care that you strike 

it in anger, even at the risk of maiming it 

for life. A blow in cold blood neither can nor 

should be forgiven. 

If you beat children for pleasure, avow 

your object frankly, and play the game according 

to the rules, as a foxhunter does; and


you will do comparatively little harm. No foxhunter 

is such a cad as to pretend that he 

hunts the fox to teach it not to steal chickens, 

or that he suffers more acutely than the fox at 

the death. Remember that even in childbeating 

there is the sportsman’s way and the cad’s 

way. 

RELIGION 

Beware of the man whose god is in the skies. 

What a man believes may be ascertained, 

not from his creed, but from the assumptions 

on which he habitually acts. 

VIRTUES AND VICES 

No specific virtue or vice in a man implies the 

existence of any other specific virtue or vice 

in him, however closely the imagination may 

associate them. 

Virtue consists, not in abstaining from 

vice, but in not desiring it. 

Self-denial is not a virtue: it is only the effect 

of prudence on rascality. 

Obedience simulates subordination as fear 

of the police simulates honesty. 

Disobedience, the rarest and most courageous 

of the virtues, is seldom distinguished 

from neglect, the laziest and commonest of the 

vices. 

Vice is waste of life. Poverty, obedience, 

and celibacy are the canonical vices. 

Economy is the art of making the most of 

life.


The love of economy is the root of all virtue. 

FAIRPLAY 

The love of fairplay is a spectator’s virtue, not 

a principal’s. 

GREATNESS 

Greatness is only one of the sensations of littleness. 

In heaven an angel is nobody in particular. 

Greatness is the secular name for Divinity: 

both mean simply what lies beyond us. 

If a great man could make us understand 

him, we should hang him. 

We admit that when the divinity we worshipped 

made itself visible and comprehensible 

we crucified it. 

To a mathematician the eleventh means 

only a single unit: to the bushman who cannot 

count further than his ten fingers it is an 

incalculable myriad. 

The difference between the shallowest routineer 

and the deepest thinker appears, to the 

latter, trifling; to the former, infinite. 

In a stupid nation the man of genius becomes 

a god: everybody worships him and nobody 

does his will. 

BEAUTY AND HAPPINESS, ART 

AND RICHES 

Happiness and Beauty are by-products.


Folly is the direct pursuit of Happiness and 

Beauty. 

Riches and Art are spurious receipts for 

the production of Happiness and Beauty. 

He who desires a lifetime of happiness 

with a beautiful woman desires to enjoy the 

taste of wine by keeping his mouth always full 

of it. 

The most intolerable pain is produced by 

prolonging the keenest pleasure. 

The man with toothache thinks everyone 

happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty 

stricken man makes the same mistake about 

the rich man. 

The more a man possesses over and above 

what he uses, the more careworn he becomes. 

The tyranny that forbids you to make the 

road with pick and shovel is worse than that 

which prevents you from lolling along it in a 

carriage and pair. 

In an ugly and unhappy world the richest 

man can purchase nothing but ugliness and 

unhappiness. 

In his efforts to escape from ugliness and 

unhappiness the rich man intensifies both. 

Every new yard of West End creates a new 

acre of East End. 

The XIX century was the Age of Faith in 

Fine Art. The results are before us. 

THE PERFECT GENTLEMAN 

The fatal reservation of the gentleman is that 

he sacrifices everything to his honor except 

his gentility.


A gentleman of our days is one who has 

money enough to do what every fool would do 

if he could afford it: that is, consume without 

producing. 

The true diagnostic of modern gentility is 

parasitism. 

No elaboration of physical or moral accomplishment 

can atone for the sin of parasitism. 

A modern gentleman is necessarily the enemy 

of his country. Even in war he does not 

fight to defend it, but to prevent his power of 

preying on it from passing to a foreigner. Such 

combatants are patriots in the same sense as 

two dogs fighting for a bone are lovers of animals. 

The North American Indian was a type of 

the sportsman warrior gentleman. The Periclean 

Athenian was a type of the intellectually 

and artistically cultivated gentleman. Both 

were political failures. The modern gentleman, 

without the hardihood of the one or the 

culture of the other, has the appetite of both 

put together. He will not succeed where they 

failed. 

He who believes in education, criminal law, 

and sport, needs only property to make him a 

perfect modern gentleman. 

MODERATION 

Moderation is never applauded for its own 

sake. 

A moderately honest man with a moderately 

faithful wife, moderate drinkers both, in


a moderately healthy house: that is the true 

middle class unit. 

THE UNCONSCIOUS SELF 

The unconscious self is the real genius. Your 

breathing goes wrong the moment your conscious 

self meddles with it. 

Except during the nine months before he 

draws his first breath, no man manages his 

affairs as well as a tree does. 

REASON 

The reasonable man adapts himself to the 

world: the unreasonable one persists in trying 

to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all 

progress depends on the unreasonable man. 

The man who listens to Reason is lost: Reason 

enslaves all whose minds are not strong 

enough to master her. 

DECENCY 

Decency is Indecency’s Conspiracy of Silence. 

EXPERIENCE 

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, 

but to their capacity for experience. 

If we could learn from mere experience, the 

stones of London would be wiser than its wisest 

men.


TIME’S REVENGES 

Those whom we called brutes had their revenge 

when Darwin shewed us that they are 

our cousins. 

The thieves had their revenge when Marx 

convicted the bourgeoisie of theft. 

GOOD INTENTIONS 

Hell is paved with good intentions, not with 

bad ones. 

All men mean well. 

NATURAL RIGHTS 

The Master of Arts, by proving that no man 

has any natural rights, compels himself to 

take his own for granted. 

The right to live is abused whenever it is 

not constantly challenged. 

FAUTE DE MIEUX 

In my childhood I demurred to the description 

of a certain young lady as “the pretty Miss So 

and So.” My aunt rebuked me by saying “Remember 

always that the least plain sister is 

the family beauty.” 

No age or condition is without its heroes. 

The least incapable general in a nation is its 

Cæsar, the least imbecile statesman its Solon, 

the least confused thinker its Socrates, the 

least commonplace poet its Shakespear.


CHARITY 

Charity is the most mischievous sort of pruriency. 

Those who minister to poverty and disease 

are accomplices in the two worst of all the 

crimes. 

He who gives money he has not earned is 

generous with other people’s labor. 

Every genuinely benevolent person loathes 

almsgiving and mendicity. 

FAME 

Life levels all men: death reveals the eminent. 

DISCIPLINE 

Mutiny Acts are needed only by officers who 

command without authority. Divine right 

needs no whip. 

WOMEN IN THE HOME 

Home is the girl’s prison and the woman’s 

workhouse. 

CIVILIZATION 

Civilization is a disease produced by the practice 

of building societies with rotten material. 

Those who admire modern civilization usually 

identify it with the steam engine and the 

electric telegraph.


Those who understand the steam engine 

and the electric telegraph spend their lives in 

trying to replace them with something better. 

The imagination cannot conceive a viler 

criminal than he who should build another 

London like the present one, nor a greater 

benefactor than he who should destroy it. 

GAMBLING 

The most popular method of distributing 

wealth is the method of the roulette table. 

The roulette table pays nobody except him 

that keeps it. Nevertheless a passion for gaming 

is common, though a passion for keeping 

roulette tables is unknown. 

Gambling promises the poor what Property 

performs for the rich: that is why the 

bishops dare not denounce it fundamentally. 

THE SOCIAL QUESTION 

Do not waste your time on Social Questions. 

What is the matter with the poor is Poverty: 

what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness. 

STRAY SAYINGS 

We are told that when Jehovah created the 

world he saw that it was good. What would 

he say now 

The conversion of a savage to Christianity 

is the conversion of Christianity to savagery.


No man dares say so much of what he 

thinks as to appear to himself an extremist. 

Mens sana in corpore sano is a foolish saying. 

The sound body is a product of the sound 

mind. 

Decadence can find agents only when it 

wears the mask of progress. 

In moments of progress the noble succeed, 

because things are going their way: in moments 

of decadence the base succeed for the 

same reason: hence the world is never without 

the exhilaration of contemporary success. 

The reformer for whom the world is not 

good enough finds himself shoulder to shoulder 

with him that is not good enough for the 

world. 

Every man over forty is a scoundrel. 

Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives 

itself nothing: age, which forgives itself 

everything, is forgiven nothing. 

When we learn to sing that Britons never 

will be masters we shall make an end of slavery. 

Do not mistake your objection to defeat for 

an objection to fighting, your objection to being 

a slave for an objection to slavery, your objection 

to not being as rich as your neighbor 

for an objection to poverty. The cowardly, the 

insubordinate, and the envious share your objections. 

Take care to get what you like or you will 

be forced to like what you get. Where there is 

no ventilation fresh air is declared unwholesome. 

Where there is no religion hypocrisy 

becomes good taste. Where there is no knowl-


edge ignorance calls itself science. 

If the wicked flourish and the fittest survive, 

Nature must be the God of rascals. 

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected 

always happens, how incapable must 

Man be of learning from experience! 

Compassion is the fellow-feeling of the unsound. 

Those who understand evil pardon it: those 

who resent it destroy it. 

Acquired notions of propriety are stronger 

than natural instincts. 

It is easier to recruit for monasteries and 

convents than to induce an Arab woman to 

uncover her mouth in public, or a British officer 

to walk through Bond Street in a golfing 

cap on an afternoon in May. It is dangerous to 

be sincere unless you are also stupid. 

The Chinese tame fowls by clipping their 

wings, and women by deforming their feet. 

A petticoat round the ankles serves equally 

well. 

Political Economy and Social Economy are 

amusing intellectual games; but Vital Economy 

is the Philosopher Stone. 

When a heretic wishes to avoid martyrdom 

he speaks of “Orthodoxy, True and False” and 

demonstrates that the True is his heresy. 

Beware of the man who does not return 

your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows 

you to forgive yourself. 

If you injure your neighbor, better not do it 

by halves. 

Sentimentality is the error of supposing 

that quarter can be given or taken in moral


conflicts. 

Two starving men cannot be twice as hungry 

as one; but two rascals can be ten times as 

vicious as one. 

Make your cross your crutch; but when you 

see another man do it, beware of him. 

SELF-SACRIFICE 

Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people 

without blushing. 

If you begin by sacrificing yourself to those 

you love, you will end by hating those to whom 

you have sacrificed yourself.

MAN AND SUPERMAN - Sandroid.org

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